X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2018) Discussion (1,685 views)

{SpoilerZ}Movie starts with much of what we see in the trailers: In 1975, Jean causes a car crash with her burgeoning powers. Xavier tells her her parents are dead and that she can have a new home at his Institute. She doesn't need to be fixed because she isn't broken.
In 1992, a space mission goes awry when a spaceship runs into the Phoenix Force. X-Men to the rescue, Jean absorbs the Phoenix, should have died but she's fine, yada yada. Xavier has a direct phone line with the US President. When the X-Men come back from the successful mission there are humans cheering for them.

Realizing that introducing both the Shi'ar mess and the Hellfire Club would be too complicated, the script does something smart and merges the 2 antagonists: a shapeshifting alien species whose world was destroyed by the Phoenix Force was observing the whole thing and comes to Earth to take the Power from Jean, and recreate their world on Earth. Jessica Chastain is kinda sorta Sebastian Shaw. imo this works for the most part. 2 important aspects of the story are maintained with this change while making things more movie friendly.

Anyway, they get back to Earth and Xavier/Mystique have an argument. Mystique isn't happy with Xavier putting kids in danger and calls him out. Xavier is willing to sacrifice some of "his" people for humanity to ensure that they are not seen as an enemy, but she isn't. She thinks the kids need to be protected from him as much as they need to be protected from humans. Up to this point this isn't bad.

Xavier asks Beast to do a check up on Jean and her powers are Over9000.gif but she's fine. Mystique talks to Beast about leaving the institute because "this isn't their lives but Xavier's," serving cop who's one mission away from retirement teas. If you've seen a movie before alarm bells are going off. It's cliché but we shall give it a pass.

Jean gets drunk at a party (Dazzler is singing!) and has a mini meltdown. People get scratches but like... it's not a disaster. Then she passes out and Xavier has to use Cerebro to inspect her mind. The protections he put in her mind are beig destroyed by the Phoenix Force and Jean hears her father's voice. She forces Xavier out of her head and escapes after putting Scott to sleep. This is where the problems start imo: she has a meltdown because "she can't control her new powers and bad things happen to people she loves when that happens," even though she hasn't really done much of anything yet... ? Legit feels like a scene was missing there. But anyway... it's not that bad.

She leaves & looks for her father who is, in fact, still alive. Xavier calls the X-Men to go to her pursuit. Mystique calls him out again, asking how he know where she's gone since he can't read her mind, and calls him a liar for what he did. Jean gets to her dad and he reveals that she basically killed her mom in the car crash. And her dad gave her away to Xavier. The X-Men arrive to get her back. She has another meltdown and accidentally kills Katnisstique. So I'm guessing this is this adaptation's equivalent of Jean destroying worlds when she went batshit. This is what's used to question her character.

Jean gets to Genosha to ask Magneto advice on how to stop hurting others. He asks her whose blood in on her but she doesn't reply. The Army gets to Genosha to get Jean. Jean's outburst is all it took to sour human/mutant relations again. Xavier can't call the President no more. This might have needed a bit more tbh. One genuinely terrible action scene later, Jean leaves.

Some pointless scenes.

And then La Chastain meets Jean and explains the nature of the Phoenix Force. Starts to turn Jean against Xavier and the X-Men. Beast goes to Genosha to tell Magneto about what happened to Raven. They both now want to kill Jean. Mags takes his Genoshans & Beast to kill Jean. The other X-Men want to save her... ? Well Scott and Xavier mostly. Storm has a couple of lines that question whether it was really an accident but Storm's not really a character in this movie so w/e. And Kurt's there I guess.

It turns into a fight @ Jean's location. This is the worst part of the film. The action is awful. Awful. There's no sense of choreography, or filming... It's hard to even keep track of where everyone is or what everyone is doing. There's an awful looking Selene who just stand there holding a knife... Beast hops on cars? Can't remember half of what Cyclops or Storm were doing. Mags blocks (not really, trains have doors) the entrance of the building where Jean & Jess are with a subway wagon. He tries to kill her and Jean's like "You can't! Lemme show u how!" and um... throws him away? Hits him on the head? I don't fucking know... ANYWAY! Kurt takes Xavier inside the building. Jean makes him walk up the stairs? I'm... He tells her to read his mind to get a better picture of what happened and the real Jean re-takes control of herself. Since she can't control the Phoenix Force, she tells Jess to take it. Xavier senses that the transfer will kill Jean and Jess is like "we'll destroy your insignificant species and take this world" or whatever. Cyclops blasts Jess and interrupts the power transfer. The MCU gets there, captures all the muties and puts them on a train. The aliens are following them.

On the train Xavier does his mea culpa. Train is attacked by the aliens and they make quick work of the soldiers. One soldier frees the muties so they can fight. Once again the action's kinda bad. But at least there's a clear goal: stop Jess from getting to Jean. Xavier and Jean have a mind chat where she says she forgives him. She understand that all he wanted to do was to give her a family and that his bad actions were done with good intentions. She understands that she has to protect her family. So, she puts everyone in psy bubbles and destroys the train and takes them to an open space.

Now this I enjoyed: Jean evaporates all the aliens with her Phoenix powers. Then Jess attacks her to take the rest of the PF. Jean lets her. It becomes obvious that the PF is going to consume Jess and Jean. Scott's evaporating & Jess tries to stop Jean by pointing out that her family will die in the process. So Jean takes them to space and destroys Jess. Jean's body is consumed and her consciousness is merged with the Phoenix.

Epilogue: Beast is headmaster and the X-Men are teachers. Mags wants Retired Prof X to come to Genosha (I think that's what's implied). The end.