It is no secret that I am a fan of professional wrestling (it is actually how I got involved in the show), and one of my biggest pet peeves is the “retirement match”. In these types of matches, either a wrestler is performing for the “last time” or a career is on the line. However, many times the wrestler who is on the losing end will find a loophole that enables them to return to full-time action a few months later, and so technically the match never happened. Even in music, there have been more than one band that has had several “farewell” tour or a Hollywood actor claims that a project is their “final” one. With “Dark Phoenix,” I wonder if this is the same thing with the “X-Men” franchise.
Simon Kinberg directs for the first time, but he wrote the first trilogy of the team in the early 2000s. This deals with the “First Class” cast and focuses on Jean Grey (Sophie Turner). When the X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), are sent to help some astronauts that have gone off course in the Space Shuttle in 1992, Grey ends up absorbing what all think is a solar flare, but upon their return to Earth, Jean starts having bursts of power she cannot control that bring back memories she did not know she had. While all of this is happening, an alien race is also pursuing the power she has within her, led by Vuk (Jessica Chastain). As Jean’s power grows, the struggle to where her loyalties lie is on.
The visuals and action sequences in this film are top-notch. Along with the fight sequences, they are on par with the other films with a few being even better. Since the story was more about Jean than the rest of the team, that made it fall flat for me because it simply made me wonder what the point of it all really was. It is also so far away from the continuity of the other films that I was confused, especially at the ending. WHAT FOLLOWS MAY BE A SPOILER FOR SOME: even though it is in the trailer, there is a major character that dies here that is featured in the earlier films that really messes things up for trying to link them all together. I was very disappointed here, so the visuals are really the only thing that saves “Dark Phoenix” from falling off the map, so it gets the crickets sound effect.