The seventh and final installment of the “X-Men” series, “Dark Phoenix” has been brought to us by the writing and directing of Simon Kinberg. With a strong opening that tells the back story of how Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) finds her way to Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) in the ‘70s, I had hopes that this might be a decent movie. We then jump to 1992, where a rescue mission involving the Space Shuttle Endeavor results in Jean absorbing what the team thinks is a solar flare, but is so much more. However, the movie goes downhill from there.
Sophie Turner does what she can (along with some great CGI to illustrate what Jean is going through) with this script to give a better insight to Jean, while Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers/Cyclops is not able to overcome the fact his reactions and responses were limited with the audience not being able to see his eyes, much less to get the feeling that he actually cares about Jean. Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/ Beast deliver the performances we have come to expect in these roles from them, but while they do add some emotion, but it is just not enough to fill the void left in the script. I do give an honorable mention to Kodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, whose performance had me wishing another writer could produce a script tell more of his story instead.
Since this is the last of the films to be released by Fox, part of me wonders if they just didn’t put there everything into it this time. Wait for it to be on cable / streaming.