![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
A Defense of 'Dark Phoenix'... I guess?
Over the past couple of years I have binge-watched multiple film franchises in anticipation of a new release. Star Wars for The Force Awakens, the DC Extended Universe for Wonder Woman, the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Avengers: Infinity War, and several others. Over the past couple of weeks, I decided it was finally time to binge-watch the entirety of the X-Men film franchise (Wolverine and Deadpool spinoff movies included) for... Dark Phoenix?
Okay, so I was originally gonna watch all of them for Deadpool 2, but I was still feeling the burnout from the MCU. Though in hindsight, this worked out. Because not only did I get to go with the Extended Cut of Deadpool 2, but I got to watch Dark Phoenix fresh off watching every other movie in the series. And my takeaway was... different than a lot of other people's I guess.
I guess I should start out by saying that these films are my only exposure to X-Men. I've never read any of the comic nor watched any of the animated television shows, and frankly I don't have a burning desire to do either at this stage in the game. So I went into this movie with no real expectations other than the bad press I had heard about it and the hope that it was at least better than The Last Stand. And in that way, if nothing else, this film succeeded.
Overall, I think The Last Stand had a higher caliber of actors who were more actively engaged in the material. I think the idea that all of the actors in Dark Phoenix were disinterested in what they were doing is off base (except in the case of Jennifer Lawrence, who is clearly phoning it in). In particular, Sophie Turner was great in this movie. I've liked Famke Janssen in other things I've seen her in, but her role in these movies, and the writing for her portrayal of Jean Grey, has been pretty abysmal at best. The highest compliment I can really pay the character during that era was she was pretty good in The Wolverine, where her character was a mind hallucination for Logan to find catharsis in, and that's not saying a lot. In this movie (and in Apocalypse), the character has actual agency and motivation. She is a character that exists beyond a plot device and comes across as an actual human being that these other characters - and the audience - can have actual investment in.
It's here where I think there may be a disconnect with how I received the movie. From what little I've read of the comic meta and from the characterization presented in The Last Stand, The Phoenix appears to be a dissociative personality separate from the normal "Jean Grey". To wit, this is apparently something Sophie Turner took into consideration for her performance. However, it's not something Dark Phoenix draws attention to, and frankly I think the story is better for it. The idea that Jean Grey is battling against the overwhelming power of her own abilities rather than an ill-defined alternate personality is a much more interesting story and affords Jean an agency and depth that allows her to be an active participant in her own story. I don't know how this conflict was presented in the comics, but as it stands I'm not sure how successfully an alter ego scenario could really be adapted for film in a way that didn't completely neuter the character like it did in The Last Stand.
This leads us to the other major element of this film - the battle for Jean Grey's soul as the film's main conflict. I've seen the conceit of Dark Phoenix compared to Captain America: Civil War and I don't think that parallel is an accurate or a fair one because they're not trying to accomplish the same things. In Civil War that conflict was the point. Bucky Barnes was present in the movie as a physical representation of the conflict but he's not the point of the story - the conflicting ideologies and approaches of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers is. In Dark Phoenix, Jean Grey is the point. The conflict between the other characters isn't one borne out of their philosophies but is a specific reaction to this specific situation. Erik doesn't bring up his ideology about humans and mutants because, aside from the obligatory window dressing of the world watching them and getting scared like in every single other X-Men movie, it's not relevant to the story being told and the themes being explored. To wit, it's not even an X-Men vs. X-Men situation like I'm seeing some commentators frame it as. It's literally four of the X-Men fighting against Magneto (which they do in literally every single other X-Men movie) and Hank, who is the only one who actually "switches sides" during that act of the movie. The story even goes out of the way to show that Storm doesn't think Jean can be saved, but she doesn't defect and actively demands to be involved in helping Charles and Scott. This conflict also only exists during the second act of the film. In Civil War it was a through-line for the whole story, whereas here it is abandoned because it served it's purpose and was no longer needed. In Civil War, the moral argument essentially ends in a draw (YMMV) as the film doesn't dictate which side is the "correct one". In Dark Phoenix, the movie explicitly states in dialogue that both sides during this fight were, to varying degrees, wrong, and the alternate stance expressed by Mystique during the first act was the correct one.
I'm not saying this movie was a cinematic masterpiece. It's a very flawed movie in a lot of ways that have been pointed out elsewhere. Jennifer Lawrence clearly wanted out of this franchise so they essentially had to kill off Mystique if they wanted to keep making these movies - which they did when they made this - and half her scenes fell flat because she didn't seem to try as hard to sell them. This movie was also sold as a "grand finale" of the franchise, which it was not. It was very obviously made to be the first in a series of more focused narrowly focused character films rather than the ensemble pieces the X-Men films had been up to this point (a decision I suspect was partially a reaction to the mixed reception of Apocalypse). However, everyone knew going into this film that it was going to be the last one and it didn't function as a finale in the vein of Avengers: Endgame or the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker. And while I do think much of this blame lays at the feet of the marketing team, the creative team had to know on some level where the winds were headed and still decided to go in this direction with the series. In the film itself, the only real nod that is given to the idea of this being the final X-Men film in the series is the conversation in between Charles at Erik at a cafe at the end.
"X-Women"... yeah there's some clunky dialogue in this movie and it should've had another pass. Though I don't think it's egregiously worse than the previous movies.
However, the main reason this movie worked for me in a major way is that it felt extremely successful thematically, which is the exact opposite reaction I had to The Last Stand. While I thought The Last Stand was a very watchable movie with a very talented cast, I found the themes in it nothing short of abhorrent. I could write a whole other post on the "Gifted" storyline in that movie and the way it clashed in a very nasty way with the allegory of the X-Men in these films, I'm going to focus on the "Dark Phoenix" storyline. Intentional or not, The Last Stand essentially came to the conclusion that Jean Grey couldn't be saved and needed to be put down. Because Jean is a plot device in this telling she's not actually an active participant in this as a character, but rather functions as an obstacle that Logan needs to overcome and kill (something which The Wolverine doesn't exactly contract, as much as I love that film). In Dark Phoenix, saving and redeeming Jean is the whole point of the story - her story. The possibility of her redemption is the conflict for most of the characters in this movie, and the outcome is one she has active agency in. If anything, Jessica Chastain's character is the plot device in this movie, acting as a representation of the conflict Jean needs to face and overcome.
And that's where the movie ends. Jean, though her own will, redeems herself and seizes control of her abilities to vanquish her foe. The only open end to this arc is that she "dies" as a result. However, this is not something left unresolved within the larger series narrative, nor even subtextually within the film itself. At the end of Days of Future Past, Logan returns to a new timeline where Jean is alive and well. Aside from her "death" in this movie, there is nothing to suggest that this future has been retconned or contradicted in any way (jokes about the characters' aging aside). To wit, this movie explicitly draws a comparison in the first act to Jean as a Phoenix returning from the dead. And at the end of the film, following a long stretch of narration where Jean tells the viewer that "she's become more" and "she's still here" in a thematic sense, the last shot is the phoenix streaking across the sky. I have no doubt that if Disney hadn't bought Fox and this film had been a financial success, they would've brought Sophie Turner back in a sequel.
And maybe the next one would've explored those character beats with Nightcrawler in the third act of the film. Really at this point all we have is speculation and what the creative team feels like sharing in interviews and at convention panels. But even still, I found this movie to be a success in what it set out to do, warts and all, and I'm curious to see how the reception to it will age, or if my read on the film will remain an outlier. But then again, I'm not an original fan of the source material, so the fact that I've managed to still write this much about this movie hopefully means something.
Okay, so I was originally gonna watch all of them for Deadpool 2, but I was still feeling the burnout from the MCU. Though in hindsight, this worked out. Because not only did I get to go with the Extended Cut of Deadpool 2, but I got to watch Dark Phoenix fresh off watching every other movie in the series. And my takeaway was... different than a lot of other people's I guess.
I guess I should start out by saying that these films are my only exposure to X-Men. I've never read any of the comic nor watched any of the animated television shows, and frankly I don't have a burning desire to do either at this stage in the game. So I went into this movie with no real expectations other than the bad press I had heard about it and the hope that it was at least better than The Last Stand. And in that way, if nothing else, this film succeeded.
Overall, I think The Last Stand had a higher caliber of actors who were more actively engaged in the material. I think the idea that all of the actors in Dark Phoenix were disinterested in what they were doing is off base (except in the case of Jennifer Lawrence, who is clearly phoning it in). In particular, Sophie Turner was great in this movie. I've liked Famke Janssen in other things I've seen her in, but her role in these movies, and the writing for her portrayal of Jean Grey, has been pretty abysmal at best. The highest compliment I can really pay the character during that era was she was pretty good in The Wolverine, where her character was a mind hallucination for Logan to find catharsis in, and that's not saying a lot. In this movie (and in Apocalypse), the character has actual agency and motivation. She is a character that exists beyond a plot device and comes across as an actual human being that these other characters - and the audience - can have actual investment in.
It's here where I think there may be a disconnect with how I received the movie. From what little I've read of the comic meta and from the characterization presented in The Last Stand, The Phoenix appears to be a dissociative personality separate from the normal "Jean Grey". To wit, this is apparently something Sophie Turner took into consideration for her performance. However, it's not something Dark Phoenix draws attention to, and frankly I think the story is better for it. The idea that Jean Grey is battling against the overwhelming power of her own abilities rather than an ill-defined alternate personality is a much more interesting story and affords Jean an agency and depth that allows her to be an active participant in her own story. I don't know how this conflict was presented in the comics, but as it stands I'm not sure how successfully an alter ego scenario could really be adapted for film in a way that didn't completely neuter the character like it did in The Last Stand.
This leads us to the other major element of this film - the battle for Jean Grey's soul as the film's main conflict. I've seen the conceit of Dark Phoenix compared to Captain America: Civil War and I don't think that parallel is an accurate or a fair one because they're not trying to accomplish the same things. In Civil War that conflict was the point. Bucky Barnes was present in the movie as a physical representation of the conflict but he's not the point of the story - the conflicting ideologies and approaches of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers is. In Dark Phoenix, Jean Grey is the point. The conflict between the other characters isn't one borne out of their philosophies but is a specific reaction to this specific situation. Erik doesn't bring up his ideology about humans and mutants because, aside from the obligatory window dressing of the world watching them and getting scared like in every single other X-Men movie, it's not relevant to the story being told and the themes being explored. To wit, it's not even an X-Men vs. X-Men situation like I'm seeing some commentators frame it as. It's literally four of the X-Men fighting against Magneto (which they do in literally every single other X-Men movie) and Hank, who is the only one who actually "switches sides" during that act of the movie. The story even goes out of the way to show that Storm doesn't think Jean can be saved, but she doesn't defect and actively demands to be involved in helping Charles and Scott. This conflict also only exists during the second act of the film. In Civil War it was a through-line for the whole story, whereas here it is abandoned because it served it's purpose and was no longer needed. In Civil War, the moral argument essentially ends in a draw (YMMV) as the film doesn't dictate which side is the "correct one". In Dark Phoenix, the movie explicitly states in dialogue that both sides during this fight were, to varying degrees, wrong, and the alternate stance expressed by Mystique during the first act was the correct one.
I'm not saying this movie was a cinematic masterpiece. It's a very flawed movie in a lot of ways that have been pointed out elsewhere. Jennifer Lawrence clearly wanted out of this franchise so they essentially had to kill off Mystique if they wanted to keep making these movies - which they did when they made this - and half her scenes fell flat because she didn't seem to try as hard to sell them. This movie was also sold as a "grand finale" of the franchise, which it was not. It was very obviously made to be the first in a series of more focused narrowly focused character films rather than the ensemble pieces the X-Men films had been up to this point (a decision I suspect was partially a reaction to the mixed reception of Apocalypse). However, everyone knew going into this film that it was going to be the last one and it didn't function as a finale in the vein of Avengers: Endgame or the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker. And while I do think much of this blame lays at the feet of the marketing team, the creative team had to know on some level where the winds were headed and still decided to go in this direction with the series. In the film itself, the only real nod that is given to the idea of this being the final X-Men film in the series is the conversation in between Charles at Erik at a cafe at the end.
"X-Women"... yeah there's some clunky dialogue in this movie and it should've had another pass. Though I don't think it's egregiously worse than the previous movies.
However, the main reason this movie worked for me in a major way is that it felt extremely successful thematically, which is the exact opposite reaction I had to The Last Stand. While I thought The Last Stand was a very watchable movie with a very talented cast, I found the themes in it nothing short of abhorrent. I could write a whole other post on the "Gifted" storyline in that movie and the way it clashed in a very nasty way with the allegory of the X-Men in these films, I'm going to focus on the "Dark Phoenix" storyline. Intentional or not, The Last Stand essentially came to the conclusion that Jean Grey couldn't be saved and needed to be put down. Because Jean is a plot device in this telling she's not actually an active participant in this as a character, but rather functions as an obstacle that Logan needs to overcome and kill (something which The Wolverine doesn't exactly contract, as much as I love that film). In Dark Phoenix, saving and redeeming Jean is the whole point of the story - her story. The possibility of her redemption is the conflict for most of the characters in this movie, and the outcome is one she has active agency in. If anything, Jessica Chastain's character is the plot device in this movie, acting as a representation of the conflict Jean needs to face and overcome.
And that's where the movie ends. Jean, though her own will, redeems herself and seizes control of her abilities to vanquish her foe. The only open end to this arc is that she "dies" as a result. However, this is not something left unresolved within the larger series narrative, nor even subtextually within the film itself. At the end of Days of Future Past, Logan returns to a new timeline where Jean is alive and well. Aside from her "death" in this movie, there is nothing to suggest that this future has been retconned or contradicted in any way (jokes about the characters' aging aside). To wit, this movie explicitly draws a comparison in the first act to Jean as a Phoenix returning from the dead. And at the end of the film, following a long stretch of narration where Jean tells the viewer that "she's become more" and "she's still here" in a thematic sense, the last shot is the phoenix streaking across the sky. I have no doubt that if Disney hadn't bought Fox and this film had been a financial success, they would've brought Sophie Turner back in a sequel.
And maybe the next one would've explored those character beats with Nightcrawler in the third act of the film. Really at this point all we have is speculation and what the creative team feels like sharing in interviews and at convention panels. But even still, I found this movie to be a success in what it set out to do, warts and all, and I'm curious to see how the reception to it will age, or if my read on the film will remain an outlier. But then again, I'm not an original fan of the source material, so the fact that I've managed to still write this much about this movie hopefully means something.