There's a particular reason why I thought this would make for good start to my canary postings, and that is simply because of how much foreboding there has been for its release. It's not a controversial opinion to state that the X-Men franchise started going badly off the rails with X-Men: The Last Stand, which amongst its many flaws utterly botched one of the defining stories for the characters, The Dark Phoenix Saga. This one by its very title not only is it going back to that story, it is doing so utter the directorship and writing of Simon Kinberg, who wrote The Last Stand. Given how much of this one's marketing looks similar to how the phoenix powers were portrayed in that one, a lot of people are very worried about this.
What's more, the real issue with going down this route again is that they do seem to be trying to rush the whole story again. In the comics, the original Phoenix storyline started in X-Men #101, and climaxed in #137. That's about four years' worth of comics to pace out the story, which was also built upon a character well established before it started. It involved a gradual succumbing to this power over time, in an "absolute power corrupts" manner, with several other villains getting involved with their own agendas. I'm not saying such a tale can't be done well in films, but the way it's been done so far, the X-Men films are in too much of a rush to get to the end point of the "evil bird of fire" bit. It's missing out on the fact that Jean as Phoenix actually seemed really cool at first, a major upgrade to the character and team, it was a step-by-step process that lead to her going so far as to start making stars collapse. Does this film have that good grasp of pacing needed to make that work?
"Charles, my old friend... how old are supposed to be again? This is 1992, shouldn't I have turned into Ian McKellen by now?"
No, no it does not. In fact, pacing is quite a major issue for this film. The early acts, despite packing in a lot of heavy lifting in terms of the plot and character set up, just sort of chug along for ages, to the point that the big climactic battle scenes of this one feel more like middle of the film action beats, before it just stops. It's remarkable that a film all about a character absorbing a fundamental force of the universe can feel so damn dull for most of the runtime. It really does feel like we're on a whistle stop tour of beats from the Saga in the comics We have to have a space shuttle rescue, because that was in the comic. Then we have to have aliens because they were part of the story in the comic. And then we have to have Jean tempted by a woman with white hair in a house in New York, because that was in the comic. How could they get so many points from the comic, yet miss the whole emotional core of the story? It also means everyone pinballs between these plot points, with no sense of time, leading to moments like the world's fastest funeral being arranged.
Notice that I mentioned that there are aliens in this one. You'd think that with a franchise separate from the MCU, entirely based on the mutant concept, that the fact that there are aliens would be a much bigger deal? But no, they're just sort of there, we have no time to let that sink in or have any impact. This brings in another major issue Dark Phoenix has, which is a direct result of all the reshoots and such; it's coming fairly soon after we've had a very solid run of far better superhero movies this year, one of which covered very similar ground. These aliens are shape shifters, so they're like the Skrulls in Captain Marvel... only really, really boring. I have heard it speculated that they were going to be Skrulls, before Marvel took them back, so in here they're the D'Bari (the broccoli looking guys who's planet got vapourised in the comics version of the story). Also, the way Jean starts discovering the use of her cosmic power is a lot like Carol Danvers discovering hers... except more emo. Oh, and remember how in Captain Marvel Jude Law was constantly the main male authority figure telling Carol to "control her emotions", and how that was shown to be a horrible, manipulative, gaslighting move leading to that incredibly satisfying ending for him? Yeah, in here we have a similar power dynamic with Charles and Jean except here it ends with Jean forgiving him in the end for messing with her life for years, with Charles doing very little to show that he's learned a damn thing. Ooof.
So, are we just supposed to ignore the blatant hints that she already had the Phoenix force last movie? Or has Fox done what the rest of us did and forgot everything about Apocalypse too?
On a technical level, the film is only really adequate, nothing special here in terms of visuals or cinematography. Actually, there is an odd little niggle I have with the CGI effects, namely that a lot of them look and feel the same. There's a moment when there's a cameo by a character I've wanted to see done properly in the films for a while, but I got a bit confused because her powers didn't look like they look in the comics. They looked like the same wispy particle effects that are used for mind reading sequences, Nightcrawler's teleporting, the impact of the Phoenix Force, and even the Phoenix Force itself. It sounds minor, but in a big battle, it can make understanding what's happening rather difficult, robbing scenes of their impact.
There's a tonne more wrong with the film, like everyone looking a bit bored, clunky dialogue, a strong case of what I call Robot Devil Syndrome, but in the end, Dark Phoenix isn't the worst of the X-Men franchise, only on account of low ambition and expectations. It takes no risks, trying to do a story that was a pretty major gamechanger for comics storytelling in a buy the numbers fashion. It just feels like everyone involved just wants it to be over, and let Disney do what they will with the franchise. It's up in the air what future the X-Men films have to be honest, given the issues in trying to fit it into the MCU. It's almost certain there'll be more Deadpool, but he's always been in a class of his own, and given his superpower is meta, he could just turn up in MCU without anyone batting an eye except him for a joke. Oh, and it's anyone's guess if The New Mutants is ever going to see the light of day... it certainly seems unlikely it's going to see the light of a cinema projector. But if this is to be the end of the X-Men franchise... just don't bother watching it and pretend that it ended with Logan instead!
No comments:
Post a Comment