Dark Phoenix

With Disney buying Fox and Kevin Feige announcing that the Marvel Cinematic Universe will reboot the X-Men franchise and start fresh, Dark Phoenix is the last film in the main series that first began in 2000. While The New Mutants is scheduled to be released in 2020 and Ryan Reynolds's version of Deadpool will still have his own films, this entry is the swan song for everything we have witnessed for the last twenty years. Dark Phoenix sees Jean Grey absorb the powers of an alien entity made of pure energy, thus increasing her already strong abilities and changing her personality as an unknown group tries to use her for their own agenda. This is the directorial debut of Simon Kinberg, who has written for past films in the series including The Last Stand which was also adapting the Dark Phoenix Saga. Most of the cast from the last three films return such as Sophie Turner as Jean, James McAvoy as Xavier, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Evan Peters as Quicksilver, and Tye Sheridan as Cyclops. Despite being more faithful to the Chris Claremont and John Byrne story than the 2006 film and being foreshadowed during Apocalypse, the focus on the power of the Phoenix and what it could do is very minimal and rushed. Knowing that the producers were planning to make a trilogy with this as the first but changing its ending during reshoots due to Disney's acquisition one can tell that there was supposed to be more. While everyone gives great performances and much of their chemistry does work, a lot of the things with Jean, Cyclops, and Storm don't work as well due to being only introduced in the prior film and not a lot of focus is given on them when there should have been. The effects and action sequences are all done really good, particularly the final fight in a military train. It's very obvious this is Kinberg's first directing job due to some odd camera placements and angles that linger for too long. His writing is just as troublesome due to how certain characters just make some odd choices that don't fit with what we know from them, like Beast wanting Jean dead for killing Mystique despite knowing it wasn't intentional. There's also certain dialogue that is either trying too hard to be modern that it is condescending, like Mystique's speech to Xavier about X-Men being changed as it has women, or forced, like Cyclops getting to use the one PG-13 "F" bomb when no one even noticed. This and several other issues is why for an ending to the series, despite not being made to do so, it's very lackluster. But there still are some great things in Dark Phoenix that make it worthwhile and gives hope to how the MCU will handle this franchise, so while not the greatest it's still an okay film. Over all: 75%

2019 top list so far:
1. Avengers: Endgame

2. Shazam!

3. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

4. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

5. Godzilla: King of the Monsters

6. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

7. Us

8. Aladdin 2019

9. Pokemon Detective Pikachu

10. Captain Marvel

11. Pet Sematary 2019

12. The Upside

13. Dark Phoenix

14. Cold Pursuit

15. Glass