Cinemutants - Dark Phoenix (2019)

At a time when superhero movies are starting to lose their stranglehold on pop culture, there are really only two options: go back and watch old movies, or kill off an entire cinematic universe in spectacular fashion. This July, Marvel’s taking the latter approach with Deadpool & Wolverine, which seems primed to seal off the 20th Century Fox film universe. And while director Shawn Levy promises, “This movie is built [...] with no obligation to come prepared with prior research,” skipping the research has never really been my strong suit when it comes to franchises. It’s a perfect excuse, then, to go through the last 24 years (and 13 movies) with everyone’s favorite mutants, the X-Men.
 

This week, from 2019, it’s Dark Phoenix. A daring rescue mission in space brings Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) into contact with the mysterious Phoenix entity, a powerful force that has the power to destroy or recreate the universe. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) leads the X-Men in trying to help their teammate, while a shapeshifting alien (Jessica Chastain) pursues the Phoenix for her own ends.

1. Last of the First Class. Dark Phoenix is entirely aware of its position as the grand finale for the Fox X-Men films, and more particularly for the sub-franchise that began in 2011 with First Class. Set now in the early 1990s, it becomes increasingly impossible to believe that these characters have aged 30 years; Michael Fassbender’s Magneto wears a few wrinkles around his eyes, but everyone else seems a spry early-30s rather than approaching (at minimum) 50. It feels as though the movie can’t introduce much in the way of new material, stuck as it is with characters like Storm, Nightcrawler, and Quicksilver, who don’t have much at all to do in the plot. Instead, the movie knows it’s an ending, and so it ties up as many plot threads as it can; mutants live, mutants die, and Xavier and Magneto play one more game of chess as the credits roll.
2. X-Women. In the eight years since First Class, Jennifer Lawrence won an Oscar, helmed her own Hunger Games franchise, and became the highest-paid actress in the world. Consequently, her presence here feels continuously compulsory, and you can practically hear her breathe a sigh of relief when (spoiler warning) Mystique dies early in the second act. Her leadership of the X-Men is an intriguing prospect, a far cry from the source material, but it comes with the grievously on-the-nose dialogue about changing the team name to “X-Women.” Granted, the women have almost always been the best developed characters, particularly under the pen of Chris Claremont (who cameos here), but the sentiment drew a derisive laugh in the theaters. Mystique says it to be profound and defiant, but Deadpool had, only a year earlier, made satirical mincemeat of the gendered team name. It’s a weird note, then, on which to start a movie about the X-Men’s most powerful woman.
3. You are not broken. I’ll say this for Dark Phoenix; as boring and underbaked as the movie is, Sophie Turner is never quite bad in it. With a different script, she might have been a Phoenix for the ages, but this movie feels like another speedrun through the X-Men’s most iconic storyline. Where it took Chris Claremont four years and around 40 issues, both The Last Stand and Dark Phoenix try to knock it out under two hours. I have no doubt that the MCU will eventually, inevitably, take one last swing at “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” but my biggest advice would be to slow down, give the story room to breathe, and develop it as a proper three-act tragedy that impacts the universe, not just Jean’s boyfriend Cyclops. Given that Turner never got to be reborn as the Phoenix, it would be nice to see her once more in Deadpool & Wolverine, but I rather doubt it; with Hugh Jackman in tow, a cameo from Famke Janssen seems much more likely.
4. Gap. Although no one really believed him, Hans Zimmer claimed to have retired from superhero movies after Batman v Superman. A scant three years later, he was back for Dark Phoenix, and thank goodness, because he’s one of the only performers who doesn’t seem bored. Indeed, Zimmer’s score elevates the picture and ends up being a fantastic listen when divorced from the film. (I should know, considering how often I’ve got Zimmer playing around me!) Case in point, in one of the film’s major action sequences, the X-Men struggle to cross the street, but Zimmer plays it like the definitional conflict of an era. The film’s final battle sequence, aboard a speeding train, is a little stronger, even as Zimmer continues to shred at eleven, all pounding percussion and swooping melodies. Like so many casting decisions and plot points in this franchise, one wonders what Zimmer could have done with a truly terrific film around him. If nothing else, one of the best comic book worlds now has a Hans Zimmer theme to hum while you read the latest issue.
5. A new beginning. One almost feels a pang of regret as Dark Phoenix ends. The film’s final moments propose a few interesting ideas, including Hank McCoy as headmaster of the newly-formed Jean Grey School. But with the very first movie set in 2000 or thereabouts and Dark Phoenix landing in 1992, the film’s erstwhile prequel premise became a sort of asymptote, approaching and imitating the original films but never quite lining up with them. So we’ll never find out, for example, whether “Stewart or McAvoy?!” was Deadpool’s Professor Xavier or what became of Weapon X Wolverine after his Apocalypse cameo (or will we?). And while the film’s final frames imply that Jean’s still out there as the Phoenix, there’s no post-credits scene and no indication that Disney intends to do much of anything with the First Class timeline. Before the TVA arrives, we can safely consider this timeline pruned.

Sound off in the comments, true believers: did the First Class timeline overstay its welcome, or should the Phoenix rise one more time? Up next, you might have forgotten that Dark Phoenix wasn’t actually the last Fox-verse film. You can’t be blamed, because I never formally reviewed The New Mutants... until next week.

Cinemutants - X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

At a time when superhero movies are starting to lose their stranglehold on pop culture, there are really only two options: go back and watch old movies, or kill off an entire cinematic universe in spectacular fashion. This July, Marvel’s taking the latter approach with Deadpool & Wolverine, which seems primed to seal off the 20th Century Fox film universe. And while director Shawn Levy promises, “This movie is built [...] with no obligation to come prepared with prior research,” skipping the research has never really been my strong suit when it comes to franchises. It’s a perfect excuse, then, to go through the last 24 years (and 13 movies) with everyone’s favorite mutants, the X-Men.
 

This week, from 2016, it’s X-Men: Apocalypse. En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), the first mutant, awakens from millennia of slumber, determined to cleanse the world and start over. Meanwhile, tragedy strikes Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), driving Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) back into an alliance with Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), while a young Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) joins the Xavier Academy and begins to fall for the telepathic Jean Grey (Sophie Turner).

1. The third one’s always the worst. When Jean Grey speaks this line, ostensibly in reference to seeing Return of the Jedi, it’s clear that director Bryan Singer is taking one last dig at Brett Ratner’s The Last Stand. It’s only been a few weeks for us, but a decade later, Singer was still relitigating the old canon he wiped away in the previous film. It’s catty and distracting, especially because Apocalypse is more or less the third film in the First Class timeline, and it’s one of the franchise’s weaker outings. It’s less schizophrenic than The Last Stand, but it’s both undercooked and overbusy, with Oscar Isaac as a surprisingly unenthusiastic Apocalypse, who in another cinematic universe could very well be the biggest threat mutantkind has ever faced. But Isaac is clearly fatigued by the heavy prosthetics and needlessly dramatic dialogue (“You can fire your arrows from the Tower of Babel...”), and despite getting what should have been a fresh start from Days of Future Past, we seem to be treading the same boards all over again. If we get a mention in Deadpool & Wolverine, it’ll surely acknowledge the fact that Isaac has moved on with Marvel as Moon Knight.
2. She’s barely aged a day. Curiously, Apocalypse is set in 1983, but you would scarcely know it’s been 20 years since First Class. There are a few throwaway lines about how well everyone is aging – the kind of lantern-hanging that Deadpool might do best – but I thought it then and I thought it now: it was a wild choice to set the primary X-Men films in the historical past and then leave them there. No one looks twenty years older, and the only good reason to leave the films in the past is to keep the rock-solid casting of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, who still play this trilogy like one long break-up. Jennifer Lawrence, meanwhile, has “contractual obligation” hanging over her head in a role that sees her discard her blue appearance for nominal plot reasons but more for her own professional clout. And with the reprise of so many supporting characters instead of the legion (pun intended) of options from the comics, it all feels a little claustrophobic.
3. The glory of what’s to come. As much as Apocalypse tries to chart a new path using the same old pieces from the original films, there is certainly a sense of awe when Jean Grey finally unleashes the Phoenix Force in the final battle against Apocalypse. Seeded throughout the film in a way that never quite feels like an echo of X2, it’s an implicit promise that the next film will do justice to the “Dark Phoenix Saga” of comics legend. Whether we strike gold is a subject for debate in three weeks’ time, but almost no one enjoyed Dark Phoenix. Will the third time be a charm if we see a Phoenix in Deadpool & Wolverine? Heck, as a living embodiment of reincarnation, the Phoenix could be just the thing to bridge timelines from the Fox films into the MCU, or perhaps it’ll just be Deadpool’s sheer force of fourth-wall breaking.
4. Weapon X. After sixteen-plus years, Hugh Jackman had very nearly done it all with Wolverine, touching on virtually every one of the costumed hero’s most famous comic book stories. Yet his uncredited cameo (which I recall being a genuine surprise) brings to life Barry Windsor-Smith’s iconic “Weapon X” design, with Wolverine as a deprogrammed and feral Frankenstein’s monster. It’s the sort of visual shout-out that rewards comics readers, while looking breathlessly cool for the normies in the audience. It also gives us a peek at how Logan’s faring in the new timeline; last we saw him, Mystique-as-Stryker was fishing him out of the river, and now we see his origin story aligning away from what we learned in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, with his brief interaction with Jean Grey retroactively cueing up his romantic fixation on her. Will the Logan we meet in Hugh Jackman have gotten his adamantium from Danny Huston or this film’s Josh Helman? Which one grows up to be Brian Cox? We may find out in a month’s time. 
5. A sinister future. We’ve still got about four weeks left on this recap series, but believe me when I tell you the end is nigh. Case in point, this post-credits teaser that never materialized, despite a pitch-perfect opportunity for the next film to include Mister Sinister, a genetics-obsessed madman whose Essex Corporation is seen here recovering a vial of Logan’s blood. Sinister’s fixation with the Summers bloodline, too, might have made for an interesting film down the line. Still, I hope the MCU is holding Sinister in reserve, and not just for a passing cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine; lest we forget, Sinister’s comics debut found him leading the charge in the “Mutant Massacre” crossover, and his more flamboyant recent appearances would be a perfect fit for, say, David Tennant. 

Sound off in the comments, true believers: is Apocalypse the biggest misstep in the X-Universe? Or is it an underrated gem? Up next, it’s swan songs all around with Logan.