We first met Jean Grey's hyper-powered persona Dark Phoenix back in the film "X-Men: The Last Stand" (2006). That time, Jean Grey was portrayed by Famke Jannsen, and the Phoenix was released when Grey sacrificed herself to save the X-Men at Alkali Lake at the end of "X2" (2003). She would meet her end at the hands of Logan (Wolverine) who was the only one who could withstand her incredible powers.
Now over a decade later, we meet "Dark Phoenix" again in the rebooted X-Men franchise that began with "X-Men: First Class" (2011), followed by its sequels "Days of Future Past" (2014) and "Apocalypse" (2016). This rebooted timeline in this new series disconnected it from the former series, enabling the filmmakers to resurrect the "Dark Phoenix" tale and give it a totally new spin in this final installment to this franchise.
During a rescue mission in outer space, Jean Grey survived a massive influx of radiant energy that entered her body. She would later realize that she could not rein in this enormous power within her which would hurt people around her, even causing the death of one of her X-Men friends. Meanwhile an alien race called the D'Bari, under their shape-shifting leader Vuk, was also after Jean Grey in order to absorb and possess her powers for their own dream of world domination.
Sophie Turner, fresh from the final season of "Game of Thrones," played the complex titular role of Jean Grey. While Turner portrayed Jean's inner conflicts and confusion with some measure of emotional depth, yet for some reason I was not as moved this time as I recall being moved by Famke Jannsen's Jean Grey in the original X-Men series. This may be more a problem of direction and script than the acting per se.
The dialogue in the screenplay was unsatisfying when compared to the two films that preceded it, sounding lazy, sometimes even corny. For this reason, James McAvoy felt lackluster as Charles X. Xavier this time. Nicolas Hoult (as Hank McCoy/ Beast), Tye Sheridan (as Scott Summers/ Cyclops), Alexandra Shipp (as Ororo Munroe/ Storm) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (as Kurt Wagner/ Nightcrawler) all gave merely passable portrayals of their respective characters, even with new dimensions to their powers.
To his credit, Michael Fassbender still had some emotional heft despite limited screen time as Eric Lehnsherr/ Magneto. Raven/ Mystique also had some inner conflicts about Prof. Xavier's plan for the mutants, and Jennifer Lawrence tried her best to rise above the limits of how her character had been written (really, a line about "X-Women"?). Jessica Chastain was an unexpected choice to play an all-white wraith of a head-villain, Vuk. She tries her best to be sinister, but there was simply not enough backstory about their alien race.
This film, the directorial debut by writer and producer Simon Kinberg, was not totally bad as initial reviews may suggest. It was just middling, far from the levels of excellence set by "X2" or "Days of Future Past." Of the major action scenes, I only liked the climactic one on the train. There were even shades of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in that final battle with the Infinity War-like dusting and the Captain Marvel-like Phoenix. Too bad the Fox X-Men franchise had to end on disappointing note like this, but still we look forward to how it will be rebooted once again within the MCU. 5/10.
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