Dark Phoenix

"They're right to fear me.”

Filmology Rating: 1.5 out of 4

Dark Phoenix is the end of your life and is written and directed by someone who has never directed a movie before, Simon Kinberg. In this movie, things go boom. Just sit back and watch the Titanic slowly sink.

This film is actually the cinematic equivalent of the Titanic. The ship hits the iceberg and it's no big deal until the ship slowly starts to sink and everyone dies. That is the perfect analogy of this film because the first twenty minutes are actually good. Then other aspects begin polluting the story and the ship fills with water. The trailer for this may be the film's iceberg.

The only good aspect of the film is the acting. Everyone tries really hard to make Kinberg's dialogue not sound terrible. And his talent of directing extends to shot-reverse-shot. It's also very apparent that Kinberg does not understand structure, pacing, and tone.

The pacing is noticeable once Mrs. I'm a bad guy appears in the film. Her motivation is to do evil things. She actually has no impact on the film at all. She does nothing. But the structure makes the pacing look worse because there are no acts. The climax of the film felt like the middle second act. This entire film from a structure and pacing perspective is an absolute catastrophe.

Tone is more of an issue at the end when characters begin saying and doing really dumb stuff. Which could have been executed better with a better director.

This film takes places in 1992. So can someone explain why Charles and Magneto look the exact same way they did thirty years ago? Just little things like that keep filling up the boat that makes this film really bad. But it wasn't bad enough. I wish that this film was a complete trainwreck because it would at least be entertaining. This film is not. It falls into that "meh" category. But it is still the worst 'X-Men' film. Some characters are absolutely worthless in this film. Magneto, Cyclops, Blue guy with tail, and Storm have no reason to be in this film at all other than to wave at the camera.

If you want to see a film that completely destroys the timeline and hear Cyclops say possibly the funniest line of dialogue ever, then this is the film for you. So long, X-Men!

Rating: Let It Burn

-Nolan