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X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX directed by Simon Kinberg (11/2/18)
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I saw this last night at the Cineplex fan event in IMAX they have. It was good not as bad as some people are making it out to be. 

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It wasn't good, and it's exactly as bad as people are making it out to be. 

 

Edit: Well, mostly. I'll say this: right now the movie has a 22% on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes for Last Stand. On Metacritic (which is a much better review aggregator), the scores are closer, but still 43 for Dark Phoenix and 58 for Last Stand.

Last Stand is bad. Dark Phoenix movie is... equally bad in different ways. But it's not so much worse than Last Stand like these scores would suggest. I'd theorize that expectations for superhero movies have gotten much higher since 2006, so this movie looks worse in comparison to its peers than Last Stand did at the time. Then, we didn't know things could get so much better. Now we do. 

Edited by Crimebuster
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2 hours ago, @therealsilvermane said:

Oh, to be sure, Dark Phoenix the Motion Picture does not do justice to the original comic book story. But is it better than Last Stand? In some ways yes, in some ways no. It's a different take that equally strays from the comic. But at least this time, there's an actual Phoenix Force. 

Personally, I think Marvel is done with the Dark Phoenix story. As big as it was back in the day, it's kind of dated now, as is Days of Future Past, now that we know you can't change the present by changing the past. It'll actually be kind of refreshing if Feige and Co. can find new X-Men stories to tell other than those two storylines which have been kind of done to death and were a plot basis for most of the Fox X-Men movies.

I agree that the Dark Pheonix saga is done as far as movies go, but calling it dated I highly disagree. The original comic story holds up extremely well, and could be updated with few issues.  I think the problem stems more from the fact that the original story was a slow burn where hints and plot points were seeded for years in the comic before it was finished. It had emotional resonance because of all the character moments and hints finally came together. Movies are not very effective on telling slow burn stories, like Dark Pheonix.  

 

I do not think it will ever happen, but it is a story that would be far more effective in a 10 episode TV series. 

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Saw it with friends last night and we enjoyed it. Was it the best no but it wasn't the worst. All of the bad press is having an affect nowhere near sold out as most comicbook movies are when we go see them on opening night. Liked it more than Last Jedi which was garbage 2c

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1 hour ago, drotto said:

I agree that the Dark Pheonix saga is done as far as movies go, but calling it dated I highly disagree.

What I mean by dated is that heroes who die don't stay dead anymore, as evidenced by Jean Grey alive and well in the Marvel Comics now. While the Dark Phoenix Saga is still a great story, its importance, I think, was lost when they brought Jean Grey back and continue to bring back characters from the dead.

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1 minute ago, @therealsilvermane said:

What I mean by dated is that heroes who die don't stay dead anymore, as evidenced by Jean Grey alive and well in the Marvel Comics now. While the Dark Phoenix Saga is still a great story, its importance, I think, was lost when they brought Jean Grey back and continue to bring back characters from the dead.

Which is why it's important for characters to stay dead in the film universes.

Many people were disillusioned into thinking Endgame wouldn't have any stakes. Which is why there was poor decision-making regarding bringing young children to see it opening weekend.

I literally had no expectation or idea that Superman was gonna die in BvS. It totally caught me off-guard.

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Wasn’t the best film but I’ve seen worse. Less than a dozen people in the theater. My bro slept through half the film, but that’s pretty normal. Looks like it will be the lowest opening for X-Men with only 5M in Thursday night previews. There was a nice mcu Easter 🐣 

Spoiler

The reshoots were definitely because of Captain Marvel as it looks like they used the Skrulls in Dark Phoenix also. Too bad Feige didn’t step in with his creative direction for the reshoots.

 

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16 minutes ago, chezmtghut said:

Wasn’t the best film but I’ve seen worse. Less than a dozen people in the theater. My bro slept through half the film, but that’s pretty normal. Looks like it will be the lowest opening for X-Men with only 5M in Thursday night previews. There was a nice mcu Easter 🐣 

  Reveal hidden contents

The reshoots were definitely because of Captain Marvel as it looks like they used the Skrulls in Dark Phoenix also. Too bad Feige didn’t step in with his creative direction for the reshoots.

 

Not going to read the spoilers.

One hour. :wishluck:

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2 hours ago, paperheart said:

‘Secret Life Of Pets 2’ Seeing $47M+, But ‘Dark Phoenix’ Up In Smoke With $36M+ In Lowest Opening For ‘X-Men’ Movie

disastrous opening.  #lookhowmuchbetterShazamlooksnow

Social media is killing this film.  

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Well, just got back from seeing Dark Phoenix. This is actually a decent movie, but not your 'massive action throughout' superhero film we have grown used to. So the times have come not to appreciate so much dialogue throughout like this. And unfortunately, with reviewer early feedback on this film, the theater was half-full. Though people were engaged in the film, which was nice.

I now get what people are talking about that many of the characters get their chance to shine. Including Nightcrawler cutting loose. It was definitely trying to be fair to members of the team that were treated as background filler many times.

Jessica Chastain's character is very clear who you are dealing with if you know the comics. And the person that said earlier we don't even get to know her name. Right at the point early on when her and the rest of her people meet, the leader clearly calls out her name which is spelled out at the bottom of the screen. And now I can look at articles that started discussing her character.

Spoiler

Vuk

Jessica Chastain Signed On to Play a Very Different Version of Her ‘Dark Phoenix’ Character

Quote

In Dark Phoenix, Chastain plays a character named Vuk, a member of the alien race known as the D’Bari whose original star system home was destroyed by the Phoenix force. In the comics, the D’Bari first appeared in Avengers vol. 1 #4, released in March 1964. Vuk (in that telling, a male D’Bari) was off-world when the Phoenix destroyed his planet, launching him into an arc of vengeance that sees him come to earth to attack the X-Men.

 

In the film, Chastain’s character follows a mostly similar path: she leads a group of shape-shifting D’Bari to earth in search of the Phoenix Force. However, it’s not clear when the decision was made to make Chastain’s character resemble the comics counterpart (the D’Bari aren’t shape-shifters in the source material as they are in the film). James McAvoy, who plays Professor Charles Xavier, recently revealed that the entire third act of Dark Phoenix was re-shot, altering much of the story.

 

And it is very clear where she is from, what her motivates are, and demonstrations of her power. Including a scene how the character ended up showing up to meet Jean Grey.

Spoiler

As the X-Men are saving the astronauts from the damaged shuttle, the D'Bari ship is in the background observing the events as it watches the Phoenix Force take hold of Jean.

The strong performances in this film are Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Nicholas Hoult. Though even the support cast get their chance to contribute. It definitely is not the best X-Men film of the overall run, and suffers through pacing concerns when some of the story lags to allow all that discussion and character focus to occur. But this to me was better than The Last Stand, as Jean Grey is central to this story and given a chance to demonstrate how powerful this character was.

And the soundtrack really does help enhance the scenes. Though it was interesting how it felt like a continuous track throughout.

Overall, I would give this a 7.5-8.0/10.

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10 hours ago, drotto said:
12 hours ago, @therealsilvermane said:

Oh, to be sure, Dark Phoenix the Motion Picture does not do justice to the original comic book story. But is it better than Last Stand? In some ways yes, in some ways no. It's a different take that equally strays from the comic. But at least this time, there's an actual Phoenix Force. 

Personally, I think Marvel is done with the Dark Phoenix story. As big as it was back in the day, it's kind of dated now, as is Days of Future Past, now that we know you can't change the present by changing the past. It'll actually be kind of refreshing if Feige and Co. can find new X-Men stories to tell other than those two storylines which have been kind of done to death and were a plot basis for most of the Fox X-Men movies.

I agree that the Dark Pheonix saga is done as far as movies go, but calling it dated I highly disagree. The original comic story holds up extremely well, and could be updated with few issues.  I think the problem stems more from the fact that the original story was a slow burn where hints and plot points were seeded for years in the comic before it was finished. It had emotional resonance because of all the character moments and hints finally came together. Movies are not very effective on telling slow burn stories, like Dark Pheonix.  

 

I do not think it will ever happen, but it is a story that would be far more effective in a 10 episode TV series.

I agree the problem isn't the Dark Phoenix story. Its Marvel or Fox currently lack of insight or desire to go all hog to make it. It requires at least 2 films or a couple of years of TV to tell the story.  You have to make the audience fall in love with Jean. Give her a life, love and so on. Then twist her for awhile struggle with it then go not_in_tune_with_social_norms crazy at the end. Then the last part decide whether she dies or lives. 

It sounds simple, but its not.

 

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41 minutes ago, Bosco685 said:

Not strong. Not a bust. Just okay, which could go either way.

 

Make no mistake - a B- from CinemaScore is catrastrophic.

Other comic book movies with B- scores?

  • Howard the Duck
  • Punisher War Zone
  • Robocop 2
  • League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
  • Son of the Mask

Put another way, that's just above Jonah Hex's C+ score.

 

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6 minutes ago, Gatsby77 said:

 

Make no mistake - a B- from CinemaScore is catrastrophic.

Other comic book movies with B- scores?

  • Howard the Duck
  • Punisher War Zone
  • Robocop 2
  • League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
  • Son of the Mask

Put another way, that's just above Jonah Hex's C+ score.

 

Possibly. With social media nowadays it will be interesting how much the positives coming out influences people.

  • Batman and Robin (C+)
  • Beowulf (B-)
  • Brightburn (C+)
  • Conan the Barbarian 2011 (B-)
  • Hellboy 2004 (B-)
  • Unbreakable (C)
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