Dark Phoenix. What's Between A Bang And A Wimper?

I am not the best person to trash movies like X-Men Dark Phoenix.  I really LOVE comic book superheroes and am old enough to remember when the best superheroes on the screen were Lou Ferrigno's Hulk and Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman.  That sort of memory means that when I see great cgi effects, big explosions, decent acting, writing and direction applied to a super hero property I'm pretty much thrilled.  Sure, there are degrees of awesome that separate all these movies, but it's truly hard for me to walk away hating a super hero film these days.

X-Men Dark Phoenix wasn't a bad movie.  Sure, it lags a little and I can see the plot being a bit hard to follow for those not steeped in X-Men movie and comic lore.  It wasn't the best X-Men but it was competent, relatively respectful of the source material and brought the boom.

X-Men Dark Phoenix wasn't a great movie.  The final act (apparently completely reshot due to it heaving too closely to the end of another recent superhero film - I REALLY want to see the original ending!) was terrific and the other two big action spots worked very well, but there are lapses in the plot and too much time spent in certain emotional spots and not enough in others.  Pacing problems are probably my biggest issue.  It feels a bit herky-jerky at more than one spot.

X-Men Dark Phoenix is set in the 90s.  If this movie had come out then, it would be considered a landmark of superhero cinema.  It's greatest sin is probably that it's neither good enough to be great nor bad enough to be laughable.  It's a pretty good film but these days that just doesn't cut it, particularly in the cutthroat realm of superhero movies.

I've heard critics say that this movie takes the Fox era of X-Men films out, not with a bang but a whimper.  I can't say I agree.  It was better than the numbers indicate, better than the critics have said and deserved a better fate than it got.  Sadly, I think it boils down to the simple fact that Fox is done and any will to make this film a hit with marketing just evaporated with the sale of Fox to Disney.  Ten years hence I suspect this film will be seen as a decent film that found itself a casualty of the deal that brought Marvel back under one roof rather than the bad film that it's currently being pegged as.

My personal X-Men rankings are as follows.  Your results may vary due to differences in sea level and access to cake.

1. X-Men 2
2. X-Men
3. X-Men - First Class
4. X-Men - Days of Future Past
5. X-Men - Dark Phoenix
6. X-Men - Last Stand
7. X-Men - Apocalypse

And I didn't really hate either Last Stand or Apocalypse.  I can see how many of these films could have been better, but I'm honestly grateful to the folks at Fox who took a chance on the first X-Men films and helped to launch this Golden Age of Superhero Cinema we are currently enjoying.

As a sidenote, it is interesting that the two GIANT superhero franchises, Marvel's Avengers juggernaut and Fox's X-Men franchise have BOTH ended this year.  Sure, there are plans for Marvel's Phase 4 and we can expect to see the formerly Fox-ed Marvel characters to show up either at the end of Phase 4 or early in Phase 5, but there's an interesting symmetry in the timing.  It leaves me wondering if that small but persistently pessimistic voice in the back of my head might be right when it says that the aforementioned Golden Age might be running out of steam...