Review roundup: Critics hate X-Men: Dark Phoenix

The latest edition of the trailblazing X-Men movie franchise, director Simon Kinberg’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix, lands in theaters this weekend. The critical embargo officially lifted last night, giving us a hint of what we might be in store for us in the Sophie Turner-headlined mutant saga.

And the hint is that the movie is terrible. The Rotten Tomatoes critic score is actually at a historic low for the series, which consists of 12 movies released over 18 years:

With 78 reviews in as of this writing, the score is at 21%, which is not ideal. Previously, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a movie that is pretty widely derided among comic fans, held the lowest score at 37%, or roughly double the score of Dark Phoenix. Woof indeed.

Here’s Katie Walsh of the Tribune News Service: “What’s truly amazing about Dark Phoenix is watching the charismatic, award-winning, star-packed cast flail about in this poorly written nonsense cartoon.” Between Turner, James McAvow, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Nicholas Hoult and more, Walsh is right that Dark Phoenix boasts a lot of star wattage. But that’s not gonna save a movie by itself.

Meanwhile, Matt Goldberg of Collider called Dark Phoenix  “ limp, muddled adaptation of ‘The Dark Phoenix Saga’ shows that the X-Men franchise desperately needs fresh blood.” Chris Hunneysett of The Daily Mirror put it this way:

"‘Nobody cares anymore’ exclaims Fassbender at one point. It’s as if he can read my mind."

Critics like Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly were more positive: “Twelve films into a nearly two-decade-old franchise, Dark Phoenix rises from the ashes of 2016’s silly, bloated X-Men: Apocalypse – not a free bird, exactly, but better than what came before.” And Johnny Oleksinski at the New York Post singled out Turner for some limited praise: “Turner might be a one-trick pony – I don’t see her signing onto The Hangover: Part V anytime soon – but it’s a winning trick.”

That’s… sort of nice?

NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 05: Sophie Turner of ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ attends IMDb at New York Comic Con – Day 1 at Javits Center on October 5, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for IMDb)

With Disney’s purchase of Fox’s entertainment properties, Dark Phoenix likely marks the end of this iteration of the X-Men franchise. How or when we might see the characters folded into the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe remains to be seen, but we wouldn’t count on these actors reprising reprising their roles. Then again, we won’t know until it happens.

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X-Men: Dark Phoenix debuts this Thursday, when we’ll find out what the public thinks about the movie.

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