Technical assessment: 3
Moral assessment: 3
CINEMA rating: V14
MTRCB rating: PG
Jean is eight,
in a car with her parents. She can’t control her telekinetic powers.
She flips their car in the highway, instantly killing her
mother. Professor X (James McAvoy) who runs a
school for X-Men or mutants, takes her in. Fast
forward. Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) is with a team of X-Men led
by Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). They save all the human
astronauts in a ship spinning out of
control. As Jean steadies the ship, a big ball of fire explodes,
and Jean absorbs all the light and force. She survives, to the
disbelief of her fellow X-Men who now call her Phoenix (like the bird that
dies and is born again). The explosion turns Phoenix to an
all-powerful mind-control mutant, and once again, Jean
cannot master her power. And there’s
a band of aliens that are out to get that power to save their
race, led by Vuk (Jessica Chastain). Jean has to decide: keep
the power and wield it. But for whom and for what?
“The women,” Mystique
says, “are always saving the men around here, you might want to think about changing
the name to X-Women.” Leave that to Jennifer
Lawrence to inject women power in the script. That’s
probably the only quotable from the movie, because the rest
is hackneyed. Since Stan Lee, the creator of many much-adored superheroes of the
Marvel universe died, we’ve said goodbye to the original cast of
his creations as franchise mergers and acquisitions happen. It
was adieu to the original Avengers cast, and now with Dark
Phoenix, we say farewell to the X-Men: First Class of
McAvoy, Michael Fassbender’s Magneto, and Jennifer Lawrence. Now when
superheroes say goodbye, we expect a bang and a heartbreak. And we
expect them, new and old, to save the universe, because that’s what
they’re meant to do. In this movie, our superheroes do less saving,
more dealing with their inner conflicts and lots of close-ups
of conflicted characters. The original cast moves us,
but Sophie Turner, fresh from Game of Thrones, needs
to shed off a bit of the android look. As with the action
scenes, the rendering of special effects and
editing make them hard to follow, and equally hard
to notice the music.
Power threatens to suck
in Professor X. To make the X-Men accepted by society,
he embraces acclaim and puts his team in danger. He rewires
Jean’s brain to bury her bitter memories and harness her
telekinesis—a big ethical issue in science. His conflicts are subtle,
and his faith in mutants and his desire to save the
world from evil make the gray areas disappear. The most
difficult choice is with Jean Grey. She too has power, more
than she can wield and want. She chooses to use it to save her friends and
family, and that kills her (technically no, because she’s the
Phoenix). Professor X eventually recognizes his grievous
fault, and there’s a coming home to peace and reconciliation,
even between Magneto and Professor X who, before their retirement, stood
at opposing poles of power. These are all good themes, best discerned
by young adults but not children, especially because there is death of a
parent involved, the death is cause by a child, and another parent resigns
from his responsibility. The value of watching Dark Phoenix is in the opportunity to weigh these
lessons against the laws of justice and concern
for others that are inscribed in the human heart, laws that
give us a sense of rightness about them.—MOE
Director: Simon Kinberg Lead
Cast: Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jessica Chastain,
Jennifer Lawrence Screenwriter: Simon
Kinberg Producers: Todd Hallowell, Simon
Kinberg, Hutch Parker, Lauren Shuler Donner
Editor: Lee Smith Musical
Director: Hans Zimmer Cinematographer:
Mauro Fiore Genre: Sci/Fi,
Adventure Distributor: Warner Bros. Location: Canada, USA Running Time: 1 hr 53 min
