Dark Phoenix: the most brutal reviews

The long-running X-Men saga has finally come to a close with the release of Dark Phoenix this week but critics say the new film is a far from satisfying finale to the hit series.

Game of Thrones actor Sophie Turner stars as Jean Grey, a member of a subspecies of humans known as mutants who as a young woman is hit by a cosmic force that makes her infinitely more powerful - and unstable. Producers 20th Century Fox billed it as the “most intense and emotional X-Men movie ever made”.

Sadly, reviewers disagree. After 12 instalments spread over two decades, the franchise “is coming to an end with the worst chapter of its long-running main series”, says CinemaBlend.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“It’s a movie rife with bland performances, dull storytelling, and bizarrely misguided choices, and while there is the occasional cool action beat and mutant team-up to enjoy, it’s jaw-dropping in its incompetence overall,” according to the entertainment news site.

The Hollywood Reporter agrees that Dark Phoenix is “distinctly minor-league” compared to the recent conclusion of Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, which broke box office records and won widespread critical acclaim.

By contrast, X-Men has ended with a “whimper rather than a bang”, says the magazine, adding: “Curiosity and the desire for completion will draw the series faithful, but the creative inspiration and public excitement that once fed the series has demonstrably dissipated.”

The new release is relatively short, at just under two hours, but “somehow, it manages to make all but a scant handful of scenes feel inexorable, inexplicably boring”, complains GamesSpot, which sums up the flick as a “plotless mess”.

Turner is a “gifted” actor but “not even her radiant screen presence and her ability to make strength and vulnerability seem indistinguishable can ultimately save Dark Phoenix from its own failures of imagination”, adds the Los Angeles Times.

“X-Hausting” and “X-Cruciating”, says The Daily Telegraph, while The Guardian concludes: “The point of a phoenix, dark or otherwise, is that it rises from the flames. But these are the flames in which this franchise has finally gone down.”