Review of DARK PHOENIX  – Rated PG-13  – 1 hr. 53 mins

This humble opinion is brought to by you T. K. Edwards

DARK PHOENIX  – Rated PG-13  – 1 hr. 53 mins

Director:  Simon Kinberg

Cast:  James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Jessica Chastain, Tye Sheridan, Evan Peters, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Jean Grey begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. Now the X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world.

DARK PHOENIX is the 12th installment in the X-MEN franchise started by 20th Century Fox back in the year 2000.  Here is a list of all the films up to DARK PHOENIX just in case you can’t place them all:  

1. X-Men (2000)
2. X2 (2003)
3. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
4. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
5. X-Men: First Class (2011)
6. The Wolverine (2013)
7. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
8. Deadpool (2016)
9. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
10. Logan (2017)
11. Deadpool 2 (2018)
12. Dark Phoenix (2019)

Now back in March of this year, Disney completed their merger with Fox and because of that deal, all the X-Men characters will eventually make their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  What does this mean? It means DARK PHOENIX should be the last installment of the X-MEN franchise starring all the actors you have grown to love over the past 20 years. And to be honest, I am actually looking forward to this franchise coming to a close because the continuity throughout these films can be summed up in one single word…chaos.  Aside from X-MEN & X2, none of the films flow together properly and some of them probably should not have been made. It is time 20th Century Fox ended it all and moved on to something else. As far as DARK PHOENIX goes, I actually enjoyed it and was surprised by its director Simon Kinberg. This is his first feature film debut behind the camera as a director and he really made some bold choices.  He’s normally credited as a writer or producer, but with DARK PHOENIX he shows his audience that he can do it all. One thing that stands out for me in particular is the way he shoots his camera. It has a fluidity to it that I really wasn’t expecting and was highly impressed by throughout the film. The main issue I had with DARK PHOENIX is that it did take me awhile to connect to my X-Men characters.  Aside from Michael Fassbender, the main returning stars seemed to be just coming back for the paychecks and not the story. They came across as anxious to leave and “ready to go”, like someone at party that doesn’t know anyone and already has one foot out the door. But all and all, this was a very enjoyable movie and an adequate ending to such a discombobulated franchise that I have loved since the beginning.  My suggestion is to go see DARK PHOENIX in the theaters and give a proper goodbye to a series of movies that has been around for so long and done so much for comic book movies to become what they are today. And btw, it’s not really goodbye because you know the MCU is going to bring all the X-Men back later in their upcoming films along with some others we haven’t even seen yet. Very exciting!!! Until next time, thanks for reading.

P.S. – There is no post credit scene.