Dark Phoenix - And thoughts on every X-Men movie up to this point

[Mr. Carnelian]

Controversial opinion: Days of Future Past and Apocalypse were a bit of a mess, but not that much more than Infinity War and Endgame. Plus, I much prefer these two films relatively subdued and small-scale climaxes compared to Infinity War and Endgames overstuffed CGI battle-orgies.

[Del Murder]

The difference is, you actually were able to care about the heroes in Avengers because they were each given their own build up with stand alone movies. Only Wolverine, and to a lesser extent Xavier and Magneto, were ever given that kind of treatment in the X movies. So regardless of how messy and CGI heavy the plots were, at least it involved characters you were familiar with and could root for.

The other thing is that the Thanos plot was built upon since the first Avengers movie and really since Thor 1. Each of the X films falls into the same problem Justice League has in trying to do too much in one or two movies. It is very challenging get the audience engaged with a team of heroes as well as a villain, as well as other side plots, in a single film. By Infinity War we may not have known all about Thanos's motivation but we at least knew who he was and what he wanted, and we could also name all the core Avengers and know their personalities and backstories.

Regardless of what you can say about the writing of the MCU movies (and I think a lot of them are pretty good), they really succeeded in creating a foundation of characters and themes that were continually built and individually focused upon, leading to the climax in IW and Endgame.

[Slothy]

Controversial opinion: Days of Future Past and Apocalypse were a bit of a mess, but not that much more than Infinity War and Endgame.

You're wrong, but we love you anyway.

[Mr. Carnelian]

Controversial opinion: Days of Future Past and Apocalypse were a bit of a mess, but not that much more than Infinity War and Endgame.

You're wrong, but we love you anyway.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

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Logan

Much like The Wolverine and to an extent the original X-Men before it, this does not feel like a comic book film. This could have been a black and white noir film, or even a western as well. If this is truly the final goodbye for Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart in these roles, this is a fantastic way to go.

One of the things I love about giving a film like this the R rating is to properly show what you know is always going on in the background. Of course there's nudity and extensive blood in the X-Men world, but it's not showcased when they're conscious of the fact that everyone of all ages enjoys an X-Men film. Giving it the R rating shows a film that has grown with its audience and doesn't pull punches. Of course Wolverine has seen breasts. Of course he's stabbed people in the face.

In this movie Logan tackles not only the responsibilities and consequences of fatherhood, but the culmination of his inner demons physically manifests itself in the form of another version of him. While the "self vs self" battles are hard fought physically it's clear the film identifies it as a mental struggle as well. Certainly there's layers to it on a philosophical level.

I also enjoy that one of the plot points of the movie is they're going to a location which Logan's daughter has seen in a X-Men comic she carries around in her belongings. The meta homage is a nice touch and I laughed at Logan taking a dump on the comics and saying "Only about 25% of this is real anyway". I wonder if that's a double wink to the people who feel that way about the movie portrayals of the comics? Might be looking too much into it.

At times bittersweet, heartbreaking, poignant, it's hard to find anything that's even bad about this film. The cast is so well put together and it's nice to see both Charles and Logan take on roles that they've never had in this long legacy, fatherhood and the unfortunate decay of old age. Stephen Merchant plays well in dramatic roles, as comedians seem to have a flawless time transitioning into. The young new actress portraying Logan's daughter is great in every single scene.

This is neck and neck with X2 as my favorite film in the franchise. If i'm honest this is the better movie but it's slightly edged out by X2 due to sentimental value.

Order: X-Men>X2:X-Men United>X-Men: The Last Stand>X-Men Origins: Wolverine>X-Men: First Class>The Wolverine>X-Men: Days of Future Past>Deadpool>X-Men: Apocalypse>Logan>11>Dark Phoenix

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

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Deadpool 2

I've started to see other people do re-watches now that the new movie is out and a few are leaving out the Deadpool movies. I think that's a mistake if you're rewatching everything else.

Out of all the movies these may be the ones that are the least related to the others, or non canon to them, but there's enough in-references and complimentary material to the other films to make them worth the watch. Plus they're just good movies. Peters, McAvoy, Hoult and others literally reprise their roles as background characters for 3 seconds in the school. At the very least they're X-Men adjacent movies in the Fox timeline, and that's good enough for me.

The opening credits don't start til about 20 minutes into this thing but it feels natural when it comes. If you liked the first movie you're going to like this one, as well. It's more of everything. More comedy, more action, more characters.

The movie isn't weighed down by having too many people in it. Unlike X-Men where the idea is all these characters are supposed to be important and central to the story but lacking screentime, in this movie all the extra characters used to assemble the team are meant to be in and out pretty quickly, most leading to comedic deaths. Zazie Beetz steals this movie for me. I love Domino.

I think this movie has my favorite credit scenes ever. I usually don't laugh out loud when I watch funny things, sometimes I'll smirk but mostly I just enjoy the entertainment. This one gives me a gut busting laugh and I had already seen it before.

There's nothing better than Deadpool going back in time to kill the X-Men Origins version of himself and then kill Ryan Reynolds for reading the Green Lantern script. In a strange way, it also wraps up the post credit scene for Origins, too. We were lead to believe that Wade was still alive in the rubble at the end of that movie. Now he's definitely not lol.

I'll be going to the movies later. One more to go!

Order: X-Men>X2:X-Men United>X-Men: The Last Stand>X-Men Origins: Wolverine>X-Men: First Class>The Wolverine>X-Men: Days of Future Past>Deadpool>X-Men: Apocalypse>Logan>Deadpool 2>Dark Phoenix

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

You know,

In hindsight I should have made one of the Deadpool reviews a Green Lantern review, not addressed it at all, and then moved on to the next movie.

Someone should steal that idea.

[Slothy]

Could always edit it into one of the former reviews and copy paste the rest into the new order. Really mess with people who haven't read the entire thread.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

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Dark Phoenix

I got to the theater at 10:30am and only 3 other families showed up. I know it's not opening weekend but it's the second Saturday. I'm not complaining. I love empty theaters.

And you know what? I loved this movie. I'll tell you right now it's in my top 3 X-Men films. This is being billed as the definitive end to the journey we've been on since the original X-Men. As far as I know, New Mutants is still meant to come out at some point, and potentially Deadpool 3? I'll be interested to see going forward what they decided to keep or reboot now that the films are in new hands.

Despite not having X-Men in the title, to me this has a classic X-Men feel that we haven't seen since the original trilogy. Storm, Cyclops, Jean, Beast, et all going on missions as a school. It's interesting the way things go without having Wolverine take center stage. Despite being central to Jean, I feel like everyone in this movie gets sufficient time to shine .

A little bit of time has passed between Apocalypse and now. Storm is an established member of the school, where as in the last one she was the big bad's lacky. Scott and Jean are head over heels, where as Scott was the new kid in school in the last movie. It's nice for them to have time to shine as a couple without Mr. Steal-your-girl being around. And they also brought back the Hank and Mystique relationship which previously only had breadcrumbs since they started flirting in First Class. They make a point to show that these 2 are the only veterans left from that movie who aren't the professor and Magneto.

There are a lot of fun scenes in this movie. Ranging from a mission to space in the X-Jet to a train fight, this group of mutants works so well together, especially when Nightcrawler and Quicksilver team up and show us a great scene of teleportation and speed closely timed together.

I think Sophie Turner does an amazing job in this film. Maybe it's the accent, but I don't see her as Sansa Stark when I watch this, and that goes a long way to enjoying the experience without imagining someone else. She also portrays the loneliness and isolation so well of someone who is uniquely strong with their powers and the ease with which it can hurt the people you love.

Jennifer Lawrence had this to say about reprising her role as Mystique for the 4th film:

My contract was up, I didn't have to do another one, but if I didn't do another one, what would her story be? I felt like I owed it to the fans, and I owed it to the character to follow her journey, to be fair to the movies, and not be like, 'I don't want to do another X-Men!' And then I just never show up and everyone's very confused about the Mystique they've been following for the last three films.

I think she did a great job. Everyone was great in this. The critics are hit and miss with the enjoyment of this movie, but honestly I didn't read into the reviews. Just saw the scores, ignored them, and enjoyed myself anyway. This franchise gets kind of a bad rap for not being good, but it's not really fair because people enjoy at least two thirds of every one of these trilogies.

I thought I'd end this with ranking them by favorites. Keeping in mind that I really don't dislike any of them, I definitely have an order.

1. X2: X-Men United
2. Logan
3. Dark Phoenix
4. X-Men: Days of Future Past
5. Deadpool 2
6. X-Men
7. X-Men: First Class
8. Deadpool
9. The Wolverine
10. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
11. X-Men: The Last Stand
12. X-Men: Apocalypse

Thank you for reading along with my thoughts over the past couple weeks. Maybe I'll do this with another series in the future.

Order: X-Men>X2:X-Men United>X-Men: The Last Stand>X-Men Origins: Wolverine>X-Men: First Class>The Wolverine>X-Men: Days of Future Past>Deadpool>X-Men: Apocalypse>Logan>Deadpool 2>Dark Phoenix

[Jiro]

As a casual fan of X-Men, Logan was definitely the film that felt most satisfying. It definitely benefits from a lot of external context, but I love that film. I'm also amazed that a franchise could have done so well with Professor X / Magneto twice. Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan are badass and lend so much gravitas to the earlier X-Men films. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are also incredibly talented and help sell the newer stuff really well.