Dark Phoenix: Ending on a Whimper
A series sendoff turns into an anthem to whining. This was not the way it should have ended.
A series sendoff turns into an anthem to whining. This was not the way it should have ended.
A younger cast puts a spring in this series’ step. One of X-Men’s best.
An ensemble cluster of action and color anchored by one of the best villains in the genre. The series’ most essential film.
Not only does the movie walk on air, it never loses sight of the people on the ground. Few movies have been less ashamed to be themselves.
A superhero film justly thought of as sloppy, and wrongly ignored for being so spunky and beautiful.
The Marvel formula can’t save an unappealing heroine from the greatest power in her universe: herself.
Burton explores Gotham like a house inspector: he’s all about details. He needed more heart.
Snyder’s baroque maleness shines through and so does his purity. He loves superheroes. You have to decide if that’s enough.
If Fantastic Four is supposed the be the story of a superhero family, the 2015 adaptation makes them seem as unsupportive as you can be before civil action becomes your only option. Not only do they see no beauty or meaning in their heroic endowments, but they are so quick to give up their integrity after the accident that you think, as you never should, that these people don’t deserve their gifts.
The film blasts an affectionate symphony of action spy movie set pieces, which Bird composes with such a self-believing style that he reminds me less of a director than of a virtuoso performer. And even they become a back-drop to what is essentially a mid-life crisis film, about a man who misses himself so much that he doesn’t even notice he has a family. Bird offers a genre fattened on mythic pretension a trimming alternative of joyous energy and dazzling characters.
This is a film made with the intention of proving that black actors should not be typecast as thugs, yet part of its comedic scheme is the counter-marginalization that all white people are colonizers. Black Panther admirably opposes prejudice when it’s directed at certain groups, but I would have preferred it, especially if its goal was “elevation,” to oppose all prejudice equally.