Movies Dark Phoenix reviews are OUT, and they are FANTASTIC

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, Kal-El814 said:

I liked Van Wilder. And I liked Van Wilder’s Deadpool. And Van Wilder’s Deadpool 2. And Van Wilder’s Pokémon. I just don’t think Van Wilder’s X-Men is what the franchise in general needs. 

 

What about his OG deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine?

[Kal-El814]

23 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

What about his OG deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine?

I forgot about Van Wilder's Worse Deadpool and Van Wilder's Green Lantern.

[Greatoneshere]

4 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

I liked Van Wilder. And I liked Van Wilder’s Deadpool. And Van Wilder’s Deadpool 2. And Van Wilder’s Pokémon. I just don’t think Van Wilder’s X-Men is what the franchise in general needs. 

 

I agree, but it's certainly better in his hands than the people responsible for X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: Dark Phoenix. It's hard to reconcile the studio who brought those two shitty movies to audiences also being the studio that just recently brought us X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Wolverine, Logan, and Deadpool 1 + 2. 

 

2 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

I forgot about Van Wilder's Worse Deadpool and Van Wilder's Green Lantern.

 

There's plenty of times he isn't Van Wilder where he's good, c'mon now. Buried, Smokin' Aces, Waiting..., The Nines, Definitely Maybe, Chaos Theory, Adventureland, The Voices, Safe House, Mississippi Grind, and Woman in Gold. It's a shame studios keep asking him to play Van Wilder/Deadpool, he can be an excellent serious and dramatic actor. Not only are most of those movies at least good, his performances in them are good. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Mississippi Grind was so good. Who thought the director of Half Nelson would go on to direct Captain Marvel?

[Kal-El814]

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

There's plenty of times he isn't Van Wilder where he's good, c'mon now. Buried, Smokin' Aces, Waiting..., The Nines, Definitely Maybe, Chaos Theory, Adventureland, The Voices, Safe House, Mississippi Grind, and Woman in Gold. It's a shame studios keep asking him to play Van Wilder/Deadpool, he can be an excellent serious and dramatic actor. Not only are most of those movies at least good, his performances in them are good. 

He's channeling something really close to Van Wilder in most of those, let's be real.

[Greatoneshere]

5 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

He's channeling something really close to Van Wilder in most of those, let's be real.

 

Absolutely not with regard to Buried, the dramatic parts of Smokin' Aces, nothing Van Wilder in The Voices, The Nines, or Woman in Gold. I disagree completely. Maybe some of Van Wilder is in Chaos Theory and Adventureland (less so in Waiting... and Definitely, Maybe) but that's about it. 

[Jason]

I guess now we know where all the creative energy went.

 

[Hurdyb1]

On 6/5/2019 at 1:18 PM, Greatoneshere said:

 

I think you mean tempered expectations, not tapered.  

 

 

Another vote for Broken Arrow. John Woo doing good John Woo, it's a dumb but very fun and entertaining 90's action movie with some flair. 

The spell check on my tablet sucks. I wish I could turn it off cause I know I typed tempered. But yeah.

 

Anyway. I enjoyed the movie. 

[EternallDarkness]

looks like the phoenix flamed out, only opening to an estimated 33 million. For the love of god, please Disney when you do finally introduce x men and mutants into the MCU do not try to do the dark phoenix saga again!

[Amazatron]

It certainly wasn't great or anything, but it's not nearly the disaster critics are making it out to be IMO.  I thought the set pieces were pretty good, albeit the setting was rather formulaic.  I liked that they evolved Professor X into more of a nebulous character, rather than the typical moral beacon.  I will miss Fassbender's Magneto and McAvoy's Professor X, the rest of the cast, not so much.

[Bacon]

On 6/6/2019 at 9:04 PM, Kal-El814 said:

No. We’ve all had enough Ryan Reynolds to last a lifetime.

Agreed. 

[TwinIon]

Dark Phoenix is a poor X-men film taken on its own merits, but it's a horrific way to end the franchise. It's a film that is internally inconsistent, but it's the inconsistencies between films that really punish those of us who have actually watched the previous entries. It's not nearly as bad as Apocalypse, but it doesn't really improve on the last attempt the series made at adapting the Dark Phoenix saga.

Spoiler

 

Taken on its own merits, the whiplash you get from the plot mechanics of Dark Phoenix are enough to condemn the film to the lesser realms of super hero entries. Only a few minutes elapse between the X-men being national heroes and the US opening concentration camps for mutants, with the only catalyst being Jean Gray crashing three police cars. We're not presented with a world on the edge of a knife, still debating the acceptance of mutants, but it seems to be the well the X-men movies can't resist, and insist upon falling down. Likewise, the characters themselves swing wildly between extremes, with Hank/Beast willing to go murder a long time friend moments after she causes an accidental death. Jean's own character swings are at least attributable to the mysterious power that has taken residence within her, no one else is privileged with the same excuse.

 

The gaps between the X-men films have always been bizarre, inventing and ignoring events as they see fit. At a certain point it felt like a necessity, the kind of crutch that was obviously needed in order to make a multi-film franchise work. The success of the MCU has destroyed the illusion of that necessity, but even still, if it results in good story telling, it's acceptable. Logan was hardly connected to the other films, but that ambiguous gap allowed the film to take the risks that elevated it beyond most of its peers. Still, even in Logan we could understand how these characters that we've previously seen could end up here. In Dark Phoenix, we see that Magneto is apparently not only not in trouble for trying to kill the President and literally end the world, but instead he's been given an island. He's at peace now, working in solitude to save his small band of misfits. At least until he's immediately ready to launch a destruction derby through New York City in order to murder a mutant that went to him for help. 

 

Even if we do set aside all the various ways this film betrays itself and its series, there's just not a lot to enjoy on a purely action level. X-2's white house invasion is better than anything young Kurt is allowed to do, even in space. Quicksilver is given all of a few moments, despite staring in some of X-men's best action sequences. Days of Future Past remains a high point for team based X-men action choreography and for showing off Magneto's powers. In that film we see Magneto levitate a stadium in order to hold the President hostage. In Dark Phoenix, he pulls a subway out from underground for no particular reason, just to fail in using metal from a banister to fruitlessly attack a more powerful foe. Dark Phoenix herself is given little to do with all her apparent strength, never being allowed to become the terrible force we keep being told she is.

 

 

The X-men movies have always been well cast, but rarely well scripted or well directed. It's a series that has lasted 12 movies over 19 years, and it's a shame it will end on such a whimper.

[Greatoneshere]

5 hours ago, TwinIon said:

Dark Phoenix is a poor X-men film taken on its own merits, but it's a horrific way to end the franchise. It's a film that is internally inconsistent, but it's the inconsistencies between films that really punish those of us who have actually watched the previous entries. It's not nearly as bad as Apocalypse, but it doesn't really improve on the last attempt the series made at adapting the Dark Phoenix saga.

  Hide contents

 

 

The X-men movies have always been well cast, but rarely well scripted or well directed. It's a series that has lasted 12 movies over 19 years, and it's a shame it will end on such a whimper.

 

There's always X-Men: The New Mutants before the Disney/MCU reboot!  

[Guest]

I didn’t know this until this post weekend trade publication finger pointing bonanza, but apparently Fox originally commissioned Kinberg to write a two parter version of the story. Not sure 4.5 hours would make it worth a damn 😂

[Jason]

12 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I didn’t know this until this post weekend trade publication finger pointing bonanza, but apparently Fox originally commissioned Kinberg to write a two parter version of the story. Not sure 4.5 hours would make it worth a damn 😂

 

I haven't seen the movie, but I saw a comment about the movie that included this:

 

Quote

However, there was no narrative structure so after the first 5 minutes, everything feels like the beginning of act 2. Then suddenly we’re post-denouement. The end. No prologue, no rising excitement, just the plot starting to move and then 100 minutes pass and we begin to see a bit of resolution.

 

Which would certainly line up with having had to hack the script for a two-parter down to a single movie.

[SaysWho?]

I just went ahead and read the plot for Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. Probably never gonna watch the latter. Maybe the former?

 

I heard so many bad things about Apocalypse and I was shocked, after the fantastic DoFP, that Apocalypse fell so hard. I watched a few scenes of it yesterday, particularly the climax scenes. Can someone explain to me what was so terrible about the film?

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, SaysWho? said:

I just went ahead and read the plot for Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. Probably never gonna watch the latter. Maybe the former?

 

I heard so many bad things about Apocalypse and I was shocked, after the fantastic DoFP, that Apocalypse fell so hard. I watched a few scenes of it yesterday, particularly the climax scenes. Can someone explain to me what was so terrible about the film?

 

I feel like I might take that bullet some day but I stopped watching Xmen films after the 3rd one and I don't particularly enjoy any of them.

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, SaysWho? said:

I just went ahead and read the plot for Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. Probably never gonna watch the latter. Maybe the former?

 

I heard so many bad things about Apocalypse and I was shocked, after the fantastic DoFP, that Apocalypse fell so hard. I watched a few scenes of it yesterday, particularly the climax scenes. Can someone explain to me what was so terrible about the film?

 

It's just so bland and pointless. It's like a Transformer sequel - all sound and fury signifying nothing. It's not outright trash, it's just so mediocre that it actually makes the film worse than trash. The worst problem is Apocalypse - he should be coming off something like Thanos but he just isn't scary. There are some cool parts to the film but it is completely emotionally inert (except for Magneto's arc). It's an okay movie but it's pretty bad overall. 

 

Trust me, the team that gave us Apocalypse also gave us X-Men, X-Men 2, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. I thought it was going to be awesome. It's not. 

[Kal-El814]

58 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

It's just so bland and pointless. It's like a Transformer sequel - all sound and fury signifying nothing. It's not outright trash, it's just so mediocre that it actually makes the film worse than trash. The worst problem is Apocalypse - he should be coming off something like Thanos but he just isn't scary. There are some cool parts to the film but it is completely emotionally inert (except for Magneto's arc). It's an okay movie but it's pretty bad overall. 

 

Trust me, the team that gave us Apocalypse also gave us X-Men, X-Men 2, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. I thought it was going to be awesome. It's not. 

Let’s be fair... Magneto’s arc in Apocalypse is shitty as well. He needs Apocalypse to tell him there’s magnetic material in the earth (what) despite being allegedly a genius in DoFP, and he’s a nudge away from remaking the earth in the image of a dude he just met days after lamenting the fact that he’s been pulled back into violence. There’s zero reason for Magneto to be anyone’s stooge at all. He does it on a dime in Apocalypse. 

 

Fassbender is great but Magneto’s movie to movie behavior creates a lunatic more than it does a compelling character. Chuck letting him go at the end of DoFP... fine? A stretch, but I get it. Letting him walk and offering him a job at the end of Apocalypse is fucking ridiculous and it completely justifies humans mistrusting mutants. 

[Greatoneshere]

1 minute ago, Kal-El814 said:

Let’s be fair... Magneto’s arc in Apocalypse is shitty as well. He needs Apocalypse to tell him there’s magnetic material in the earth (what) despite being allegedly a genius in DoFP, and he’s a nudge away from remaking the earth in the image of a dude he just met days after lamenting the fact that he’s been pulled back into violence. There’s zero reason for Magneto to be anyone’s stooge at all. He does it on a dime in Apocalypse. 

 

Fassbender is great but Magneto’s movie to movie behavior creates a lunatic more than it does a compelling character. Chuck letting him go at the end of DoFP... fine? A stretch, but I get it. Letting him walk and offering him a job at the end of Apocalypse is fucking ridiculous and it completely justifies humans mistrusting mutants. 

 

I just meant Fassbender acts so well he sells the hell out of it. What they ultimately do to his character is really stupid, I agree. 

[SaysWho?]

2 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

It's just so bland and pointless. It's like a Transformer sequel - all sound and fury signifying nothing. It's not outright trash, it's just so mediocre that it actually makes the film worse than trash. The worst problem is Apocalypse - he should be coming off something like Thanos but he just isn't scary. There are some cool parts to the film but it is completely emotionally inert (except for Magneto's arc). It's an okay movie but it's pretty bad overall. 

 

Trust me, the team that gave us Apocalypse also gave us X-Men, X-Men 2, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. I thought it was going to be awesome. It's not. 

 

That's exactly why it was so confusing to see the reaction! Everyone was shitting on it during the lead-up to its release, but many crapped on First Class and I feel like some people did for DoFP. But DoFP, I loved so much, that I couldn't see WHY Apocalypse would be so bad. If you didn't like any, okay, I get it. But when people who liked Singer's X-Men films tell me that Apocalypse really was terrible, I feel like I probably am not missing anything trying to watch it.

 

I guess I could pretend it ends with DoFP and Logan.

 

Apocalypse did strike me as so similar to Thanos when I read the plot summary. We all probably agree -- I'm gonna actually amend that to definitely -- that Thanos looks more intimidating. But I felt, hey, I've enjoyed Singer's villains so far, so regardless as to how he looks, it'll probably work out in the movie. Watching the climax, he has cool powers but it doesn't seem particularly crazy considering the character. 

[Greatoneshere]

41 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

That's exactly why it was so confusing to see the reaction! Everyone was shitting on it during the lead-up to its release, but many crapped on First Class and I feel like some people did for DoFP. But DoFP, I loved so much, that I couldn't see WHY Apocalypse would be so bad. If you didn't like any, okay, I get it. But when people who liked Singer's X-Men films tell me that Apocalypse really was terrible, I feel like I probably am not missing anything trying to watch it.

 

I guess I could pretend it ends with DoFP and Logan.

 

Apocalypse did strike me as so similar to Thanos when I read the plot summary. We all probably agree -- I'm gonna actually amend that to definitely -- that Thanos looks more intimidating. But I felt, hey, I've enjoyed Singer's villains so far, so regardless as to how he looks, it'll probably work out in the movie. Watching the climax, he has cool powers but it doesn't seem particularly crazy considering the character. 

 

I would highly recommend watching the movie to find out for yourself haha (that's why I eventually watched it - morbid curiosity). As I said, it's just all sort of there as a movie. X-Men ended with DoFP, Logan, and Deadpool 1 + 2 (to me). Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix (seemingly, I haven't seen it yet) can mostly be forgotten, but given they both star the casts from the excellent First Class and DoFP, it's kind of hard to do so. I actually don't think I mind Apocalypse as many as most do (I didn't hate the film) but yeah. 

 

And then there's X-Men: The New Mutants, which may or may not come out ever?  

[johnny]

7 hours ago, SaysWho? said:

I just went ahead and read the plot for Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. Probably never gonna watch the latter. Maybe the former?

 

I heard so many bad things about Apocalypse and I was shocked, after the fantastic DoFP, that Apocalypse fell so hard. I watched a few scenes of it yesterday, particularly the climax scenes. Can someone explain to me what was so terrible about the film?

Skip it. The only great X-men movies are Logan and Deadpool 1. There are a couple good ones and then a lot of shit including Apocalypse. 

[Remarkableriots]

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2474936/the-dark-phoenix-ending-makes-no-sense-because-of-days-of-future-past

[CastlevaniaNut18]

After finally watching Apocalypse last night, I didn't think it was so terrible. My husband, who grew up a big X-Men fan thought it was entertaining enough, too. I can always nitpick at plot devices, but I've enjoyed the characters all this time. 

 

Will watch Dark Phoenix when it comes to Blu-ray.