Another night at my local IMAX Cinema, this time to check out the latest in another franchise, with X-Men: Dark Phoenix, a movie that after seeing the trailers I thought, “I have to see this“.
Jean Grey begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. Now the X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world.
Before I start, I have to say that I am a big fan of the X-Men movies, but more so the originals before the reboot with the younger versions of the X-Men that we first saw on the big screen back in 2000.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the first full feature directed by Simon Kinberg h was the producer on First Class, Days of Future Past, Apocalypse and Logan. It reunites the cast from the previous X-Men movie.
Starting in 1975 we see Jean Grey as a child with her family driving along listing to the radio and enjoying life when a turn for the worst happens in a shocking accident, that I do have to say looks impressive on the large IMAX screen, then we head to the 90s to continue the story with the older Jean and fellow X-Men.
The IMAX version of the film looks and sounds great, Hans Zimmer’s score for the movie is fantastic and sounds superb in the IMAX cinema, but sadly the movie is let down by several things, one being Jessica Chastain’s character, I just found her so one dimensional and didn’t enjoy her screentime, which is a shame as Chastain is a superb actress with the right roles. I would have loved to have seen that Jean and Logan’s chemistry brought in to play, we saw that with the original movies, but with Hugh Jackman being a lot older now, I suppose it may not have looked right, but then again we have seen some amazing CGI in making cast look younger in the Marvel Cinematic Universe!
The story did have me losing interest from time to time as well, there just seemed to be something missing from the movie, which I can’t my finger on, Dark Phoenix just doesn’t seem to have the feel of some of the previous movies, but it’s still better than X-Men: The Last Stand, so that’s saying something.
Cast-wise, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult and Sophie Turner are great and MacAvoy is still a good younger Prof X as Holt is as Hank/Beast, it is hard to brush Games of Thrones to one side when you See Turner, but the carries of the role of a troubled Jean/Phoenix well.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix is a visual and audio delight in IMAX, the 3D has some depth, but doesn’t poke you in the face with the gimmicks, if you like the X-Men movies then this is one you will want to see, but it’s not one of the best in the franchise, personally for me that would be the first X-Men movie from 2000.
Movie title: X-Men: Dark Phoenix
Movie description: Jean Grey begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. Now the X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world.
Date published: June 8, 2019
Director(s): Simon Kinberg
Actor(s): James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Sophie Turner
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
