She just has whatever power is convenient for making her threatening, and that’s just poor character development. Vuk, the D’Bari leader, is somehow stronger than the others even though we don’t really know why. The time spent on Jean Grey is important, but it means that everything about the D’Bari feels rushed, like they are just shoehorned into the story. I think their name gets mentioned once? Their powers are poorly defined, and that’s one of the many things that irked me about Apocalypse (at least I’m consistent).

She has the ability to remake reality and she is fueled by pure desire. Watching her deflect Storm’s lightning, move fast enough to react to Quicksilver, and smash Magneto’s helmet on his own head illustrates why she is the deadliest mutant in the world. The fights with Phoenix/Dark Phoenix are terrifying. Jean Grey’s Dark Phoenix is what Neo’s “The One” should have been:ĭark Phoenix: Not good at social distancing

In practice it just meant he could fly and stop bullets, but otherwise not much changes.

I also liked this version of Dark Phoenix and here’s why – remember at the end of The Matrix when Neo became “The One”? It seemed like the ability to “rewrite the Matrix’s code” meant that Neo would be a demigod, that he could alter reality itself with a thought. They aren’t the sort of massive-scale, city-destroying battles of past installments, but they are personal, close quarters fights that I think are actually more interesting. I also think the fight sequences in “Dark Phoenix” are really good. The friendship between Beast and Xavier nearly disintegrates and the other X-Men question the philosophy that brought them together in the first place. Watching Jean struggle against the overwhelming “id” that is the Phoenix Force, and seeing the X-Men nearly fall apart as they wonder what to do about her, makes for real emotional character development. There’s plenty to criticize about this movie, and I will, but there was also plenty I liked. I’m not saying it’s the best X-Men movie, or even near the top, but I place it squarely in the middle of the pack (see my ranking of all X-Men movies below).

I know this movie is described as a failure that led to the end of this franchise, but here is my “Dark Phoenix” hot take: It’s better than “ Apocalypse“. I don’t want to spoil anything but let’s just say there’s not gonna be future films in this franchise…

X men 2 movie phoenix