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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