Before we get into it, let’s just put out there that I am a huge fan of the comic book industry and do have a special place in my heart for the X-Men, the character Jean Grey and the Phoenix storylines.
After watching the film, I’m greatly unsure why Dark Phoenix (2019) is getting all of the negative press it’s receiving and have to say that I really enjoyed it – regardless of the necessity of comic to motion picture adaptation story elements that are generally required to change in a story of this magnitude.
I’ve had similar conversations (and delivered an educational lecture) revolving around how it is necessitated to have to change story elements in adaptations of original properties when making the jump from such largely developed properties (like the X-Universe, Avengers-Universe and the Spider-Universe) to the silver screen.
We’re talking about story development and storylines that are explained and expanded upon over decades of time and throughout multiple formats and inter-woven books within the same universes – then adapted into a single movie. Even in the massive scale of the Avengers MCU adaptation leading up to ‘Infinity Wars‘ / ‘End Game‘ which was 22 movies, there are story elements that of course had to change or be left out from the core storyline in order to preserve it from having to be further expanded upon.
Now, don’t get me wrong, being a fan of most of (if not all of these stories in their original formats) yes it does cause a little confusion why they’ve changed or left out parts of these iconic stories.
The simplistic explanation is:
They have to.In the example at hand (without glaring spoilers), the original storyline and origin/awakening of the Phoenix character includes many events throughout its history – to save time we’ll jump forward to when Jean Grey telepathically linked her mind to the mind of Annie Richardson’s – her dying friend – to prevent her mind from transferring to the afterlife. This is when the Phoenix Force first discovers Jean Grey as her mind was between realities (hers and the after life) which sparked interest from the Phoenix Force which then assisted in breaking the bond between her and Annie’s mind, arguably saving the mind/life of Jean Grey. Afterwards, the Phoenix Force stayed with Jean Grey (dormant) to keep watch over the young yet powerful mutant.
The Phoenix Force reappeared later through a storyline involving the Shi’ar Empire (Shi’ar Galaxy) and it’s empress Lilandra whose power hungry brother D’Ken was destroying entire worlds within their own galaxy attempting to gain control of the M’Kraan Crystal (a nexus of realities).
Lilandra fled the Shi’ar Galaxy in hopes of protecting the universe against D’Ken obtaining the crystal. Lilandra was ultimately discovered by the X-Men in space where Jean Grey was almost killed during the space mission but her mind called out for help – awakening the dormant Pheonix Force wherein it merged with the mind of Jean Grey creating the ‘Phoenix’ character that ultimately put an end to the intergalactic battle by stopping D’Ken from obtaining the M’Kraan Crystal and then repairing it’s energy nexus to prevent the destruction of the universe.
Following these events, Phoenix met a young and handsome man named Nikos in Greece, later revealed to be Mastermind, a mutant with illusionary powers. He began to plant seeds of dissent within Phoenix’s fragile psyche by comparing her to a god and insisting she can do whatever she wants. She would later encounter him again in Scotland, under the guise of Jason Wyngarde, a handsome 18th Century loyalist, believing him to be both the work of the reality-warping mutant Proteus and the lover of one of her ancestors.
After an encounter with the Hellfire Club and manipulation by Mastermind and the White Queen, the Phoenix was transformed into their Black Queen. She broke free of Mastermind’s control, but had been transformed into Dark Phoenix. She battled the X-Men and fled to the stars, devoured the energies of the D’Bari star system to satisfy her “hunger” as Dark Phoenix – annihilating the five billion inhabitants of its fourth planet, and destroyed a nearby Shi’ar observatory vessel which opened fire on her before she returned to Earth. There, Dark Phoenix was defeated in psionic combat by Professor X, and Phoenix/”Jean Grey” regained control. The X-Men, along with Phoenix, were then teleported to space by the Shi’ar and given a trial by combat. Just as victory seemed certain for the Imperial Guard, “Jean” once again became Dark Phoenix, but in a moment of sanity and to save her teammates, ultimately committed apparent suicide on Earth’s moon before the eyes of a horrified Cyclops.
To adapt a storyline of this size into a single movie, or even had they made this a trilogy, there would have been way too many character introduction stories, races to explain, powers to uncover, and even had they done it ultimately the story takes place in such a substantial timeline with other stories woven through it that this creates the necessitation of story change and adaptation that I referred to.
When you look at the history of the Phoenix / Dark Phoenix storylines and deciphering the key elements and components to draw from and then how to incorporate those elements into bridging removed story elements – you get a movie like Dark Phoenix (2019).
Ultimately, as I’d explained at the beginning of this post I was actually impressed with how they did this story in an adaptive format especially considering it was one film. The story still had progression and character development, it relied upon human emotion and connection/relativity to drive major story events, and the core basis of the stories they brought together was in sync with the title character and x-universe in general.
While at times there was some excessive special effects you have to expect that from a superhero movie – I would argue though that while at times the fx bordered on the line of too much it never crossed it the way that recent DC universe adaptations have taken.
All in all, a movie I’d recommend for a trip back through your young days of comic books and a few hours of engaging cinematic and action-packed but story driven entertainment – just don’t expect it to be exactly like the comic books…
★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆