X-Men: Dark Phoenix has had a troubled journey to theaters, whatever way you look at it. The very premise – redoing a story we already saw adapted last decade – left fans shrugging while the numerous delays to the release date dampened interest even further. And then, of course, there’s the sense that this could be the last ever entry in Fox’s X-Men franchise as they’re about to be hoovered up by Disney.
All that’s to say that Dark Phoenix is not at the top of many people’s most-anticipated superhero movie of the year lists. However, it might just find itself at the top of a few worst movies of the year lists if this early reaction proves to be any indication of how things turned out. Someone who’s seen a screening of the film has reached out to We Got This Covered to give us their thoughts on it, and they aren’t pretty.
Apparently, we can expect an all-round disappointment that’s closer to the quality of The Last Stand than we’d like. There’s allegedly a good twist in the middle, but it sounds like people’s mileage may vary on that.
Here’s what our source had to say:
“I went and saw Dark Phoenix a few months ago. While I didn’t like Apocalypse, I still had high hopes because I still loved First Class and Days of Future Past. Unfortunately, the film was a huge disappointment. Terrible script, bland visuals and the weird choice to recreate scenes from The Last Stand – Fox’s other attempt (failure) to adapt The Dark Phoenix storyline. There is ONE kind of an interesting twist midway but it didn’t really do much for me.”
The individual then went on to note that even Jessica Chastain’s villain couldn’t improve the movie, which they claim just fails on all levels.
“Jessica Chastain – usually an actress I adore – is just AWFUL in this. Maybe one of the worst villains in a comic book movie I’ve seen in awhile. The Alien villains are bland in general, too. So in short: Overdramatic, badly written, with great actors giving terrible performances. Just an embarrassment to all involved. I’m sad one of my favorite franchises is ending on such a low-note. Can’t wait to see what Feige and co. have in mind for the characters for the MCU though. Thank God the Fox era is about to be over.”
Well, that’s definitely not what X-Men fans wanted to hear. After the underwhelming Apocalypse, Fox were likely trying to course-correct with another go at one of the most popular X-stories of all time, but it sounds like they just messed it up twice instead. Of course, this is just one viewer’s opinion, but the overall pre-release buzz around X-Men: Dark Phoenix is telling us a similar story. Regardless, we can judge for ourselves when it finally hits theaters on June 7th.
