The first trailer has been released for X-Men: Dark Phoenix and the initial vibe is that it looks like a great film, if you also like Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse. The long-delayed film, which will almost assuredly be the last movie in the current version of the team (pre-Disney), is coming forward with a trailer that is filled with darkness and heavy bass notes, but not much else.
In a lot of ways, I feel bad for this movie. It’s clearly trying to go back and fix the mistakes of the first time that the story of the Dark Pheonix was told in X-Men 3, but you rarely make something good when you are using something bad as its touchstone. When you drive, you should be looking where you want to go and not staring at the truck you are trying to avoid.
It’s true that this is the first trailer. Lots of movies turn out to be great after having unimpressive trailers. It could be that all the news that has come out over the delays has baked in too much negativity to the film and it’s just coming through to me. I know that Jennifer Lawrence was there out of obligation, not love for the role. I also know that there’s a 90% chance that she is going to die in the scene shown in the trailer because of it. I know that Jessica Chastain is playing an alien so I should not expect her to emote like a human. But, if they wanted to pull that off, it would have been nice if they made her not look like a human. The Shi’ar doesn’t look much different than humans, but there is more of a difference than hair color. These are just the small, glaring things for me. It might look like the best X-Men film of all time to you and that is fine too.
We’ll know what the fans think of when Dark Phoenix hits theaters on June 7th.
In DARK PHOENIX, the X-MEN face their most formidable and powerful foe: one of their own, Jean Grey. During a rescue mission in space, Jean is nearly killed when she is hit by a mysterious cosmic force. Once she returns home, this force not only makes her infinitely more powerful, but far more unstable. Wrestling with this entity inside her, Jean unleashes her powers in ways she can neither comprehend nor contain. With Jean spiraling out of control, and hurting the ones she loves most, she begins to unravel the very fabric that holds the X-Men together. Now, with this family falling apart, they must find a way to unite — not only to save Jean’s soul, but to save our very planet from aliens who wish to weaponize this force and rule the galaxy.