{"id":8112,"date":"2019-06-04T21:54:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T04:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog-proxy.atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/?p=8112"},"modified":"2019-06-11T16:38:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T23:38:01","slug":"x-men-dark-phoenix-review-three-reasons-to-see-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/x-men-dark-phoenix-review\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;X-Men: Dark Phoenix&#8217; Review: Three Reasons to See It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After nearly two decades, the X-Men franchise as most fans have known it comes to an end with <em>X-Men:<\/em>\u00a0<em>Dark Phoenix<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Writer-director Simon Kinberg makes his feature directorial debut on the fourth movie to feature the\u00a0<em>First Class<\/em> cast, and it is his second time tackling the storyline of Jean Grey&#8217;s super-powerful and deadly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/dark-phoenix-comic-history\/\">Dark Phoenix alter ego<\/a>. Kinberg was one of the writers who helped first bring this story to the big screen with 2006&#8217;s creatively-disappointing\u00a0<em>X-Men: The Last Stand<\/em>. Now, Kinberg uses Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) to take a mulligan on this epic, cosmic tale that finds Jean forced to go on the run when nefarious aliens led by Jessica Chastain come for the Phoenix energy that has turned Jean into a threat for her fellow X-Men. Lots of explosions &#8212; and one funeral (gasp!) &#8212; ensue.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EKudKTbvzYc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Before watching this end of an era on the big screen, here are three things worth seeing all go down in a theater.<\/p>\n<h2>1. The Opening Space Shuttle Rescue<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Set in the 1990s, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atomtickets.com\/movies\/dark-phoenix\/240943\"><em>Dark Phoenix<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">wastes little time assembling our mutant heroes on an adventure that shows off both their new dynamic and their new brief, which Quicksilver remarks is \u201cdoing space missions now.\u201d Somehow, after literal worldwide destruction and death brought Earth to the brink of nuclear war in the \u201880s-set <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">X-Men: Apocalypse<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the President of the United States has Xavier and his X-Men on retainer for special missions &#8212; there\u2019s even an \u201cX\u201d phone with a direct line to the White House. (The events of that much-maligned 2016 sequel are not mentioned or referred to.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once Xavier gets the call, he dispatches the team, led by Mystique, to take the newly-designed X-Jet into space to rescue the shuttle Endeavour from a near-catastrophic disaster. Here, Kinberg\u2019s script offers several inventive and efficient uses of our mutants\u2019 power sets to help save the human astronauts before they collide with the cosmic cloud thing that lights the fuse on Jean Grey\u2019s Dark Phoenix arc. Watching Quicksilver&#8217;s signature super speed used in Zero-G, while Nightcrawler leaves inky tendrils in his teleporting wake, is one of the franchise\u2019s highlights action-wise. The sequence gets bonus points for finally finding a good use of Storm\u2019s abilities by having her freeze some of the shuttle\u2019s hull breaches before more can occur.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>2. Magneto Is A Badass<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While some of his fellow cast members\u2019 performances come off as bored or phoned-in with this installment, Fassbender manages to deliver the compelling intensity fans have grown accustomed to from him as Erik Lehnsherr\/Magneto. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Apocalypse<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> gave the actor a much-welcomed side story that found Magneto trying to live off the grid with a family that was tragically taken away from him. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dark Phoenix<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> once again picks up with the mutant on his own, this time overseeing a mutants-only colony. Yup, we finally get a version of Genosha on the big screen, albeit in a limited, budget-friendly form.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The movie\u2019s most interesting ideas and lines of dialogue are afforded to Magneto, and Fassbender perfectly delivers the latter when he confronts a typically apologetic Xavier with a summary of his pattern whenever crises loom: \u201cYou\u2019re always sorry, Charles. And there\u2019s always a speech\u2026 Nobody gives a sh*t.\u201d It\u2019s moments like this that harken back to the darker, more menacing edge this iteration of the character was given in 2011\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">X-Men: First Class<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dark Phoenix<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is at its most engaging whenever Magneto gets a chance to indulge in it.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>3. The Final Train Battle<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KgmwVt5z27M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Speaking of Magneto\u2019s darker tendencies, they are fully unleashed during the movie\u2019s most impressive (if geographically-confusing, action-wise) set piece: The climatic train fight. Here, after first fighting Xavier\u2019s attempt to stall him from killing Jean, Magneto teams up with Charles and the X-Men to save Jean from the alien forces coveting her dark powers. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In doing so, Magneto is given two great \u201cfinishing moves\u201d here that are on par with his epic (and unsettling) takedown of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First Class<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019 Sebastian Shaw by psychically forcing a Nazi coin into Shaw\u2019s brain. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dark Phoenix<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the first <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">X-Men <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">movie since <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First Class<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to flirt with similar, borderline-R-rated action, as Magneto finds ways to manipulate metal objects \u2013 metal floor grates and rebar, for example \u2013 in ways that are both fist-pumpingly satisfying <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> cringeworthy. (The theater clapped at my screening when Magneto willed a shard of metal that an alien thug was holding to stab said alien.) \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">X-Men: Dark Phoenix <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rights some of the wrongs <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">X3<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> committed when it tackled this storyline 13 years ago. As cosmic as this blockbuster CG-a-thon gets, Kinberg\u2019s handling of the material keeps the action, for better or worse, focused on what has kept audiences coming back to this franchise for almost 20 years: the characters. As much as we\u2019re going to miss this franchise, we are very eager to see the next evolution of these heroes under the banner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Dark Phoenix<\/em> hits theaters this Friday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.atomtickets.com\/movies\/dark-phoenix\/240943?ref=gettickets\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog-proxy.atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Get-Tickets.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After nearly two decades, the X-Men franchise as most fans have known it comes to an end with X-Men:\u00a0Dark Phoenix. Writer-director Simon Kinberg makes his feature directorial debut on the fourth movie to feature the\u00a0First Class cast, and it is his second time tackling the storyline of Jean Grey&#8217;s super-powerful and deadly Dark Phoenix alter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":7312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[40,37],"class_list":["post-8112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-featuredpage","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8112"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8131,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112\/revisions\/8131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomtickets.com\/movie-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}