Movie Review

Dark Phoenix is a dismal end to X-Men as we know them

The quality of the X-Men movies has ebbed and flowed over the past 20 years since the original X-Men debuted in 2000. But whether they were good, bad, or somewhere in between, they've all had a reason for being, something that cannot be said for the latest (and last?) entry, Dark Phoenix.

The film finds the core X-Men group — Professor X (James McAvoy), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) — getting into the business of space rescue in the early '90s after a space shuttle is overtaken by a mysterious force. During said rescue, Jean becomes infected with the force, greatly loosening her already tenuous control of her powers.

Turns out that force is coveted by an alien race that has been tracking it through the universe, one which can take on human forms, as Vuk (Jessica Chastain) does to one unfortunate soul. After a tragic incident, mutants around the world, including Magneto (Michael Fassbender), must decide if Jean is worth saving or if she must be eliminated to save the rest of them.

Writer/director Simon Kinberg, taking the reins after writing a handful of other films in the series, has delivered perhaps the least exciting X-Men film. The beats of the story seem more dutiful than anything else, both in making sure each popular character has at least something to do and in trying to pay homage to the popular Dark Phoenix saga from the comic books.

The biggest problem is that the film doesn't build up any kind of true enmity. Jean does end up doing some reprehensible things, but it's clear that it's due to a force she cannot control, so any anger directed her way by certain characters holds no water. Despite their stated nefarious plans, the alien race never feels like a true menace. It's almost as if Kinberg threw them in as an afterthought so that there would be more than just mutant-on-mutant violence.

Previous X-Men movies have been successful in using metaphors to relate to the real world, but this film makes only a cursory attempt at that. The fragile relationship between mutants and humans is damaged by Jean's outbursts, but Kinberg does not do a good job of demonstrating that they would cause as much as harm as they do.

What pleasure there is to be had in Dark Phoenix is from the performances of the actors who know their characters well by now. McAvoy, Fassbender, Lawrence, Hoult, and others give gravity to actions that would otherwise be considered ridiculous. It's just too bad the story doesn't live up to their talents.

With Disney's purchase of 20th Century Fox, the future of the X-Men series is up in the air. If this is to be the final film in its current incarnation, it's an unfortunate end to characters that essentially started the movie superhero boom.

Sophie Turner in Dark Phoenix.

Sophie Turner in Dark Phoenix

Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

Sophie Turner in Dark Phoenix.

Movie Review

Dallas gets showcased in witchy new movie Forbidden Fruits

Alexandra Shipp, Lili Reinhart, and Victoria Perfetti in Forbidden Fruits

Photo courtesy of IFC

Alexandra Shipp, Lili Reinhart, and Victoria Perfetti in Forbidden Fruits.

There was a time when Dallas was a prime location for movies, whether it was for films set in and around the city, like Tender Mercies, or ones that used it to stand in for other locations, like Robocop. Dallas is getting its first notable shoutout in a long time thanks to the new film, Forbidden Fruits.

Set mostly in a NorthPark Center-like location called Highland Place Mall, the film centers on a group of young women known as the Fruits. Apple (Lili Reinhart), Cherry (Victoria Perfetti), and Fig (Alexandra Shipp) all work at a clothing store called Free Eden, with the three of them essentially lording over everyone else in the mall. That includes Pumpkin (Lola Tung), who works at the pretzel store Sister Salt’s and who wants to join their group.

Pumpkin soon discovers that, apart from being an entitled clique, the group also claims to be a coven of witches, with Apple especially using their combined power to get back at anyone who’s wronged them. When Pumpkin starts noticing Cherry and Fig going astray of the group’s code, she uses this knowledge to get in tighter with Apple, although she’s unprepared for how far Apple will go to protect her interests.

Written and directed by Meredith Alloway (who grew up in Dallas and graduated from both Lake Highlands High School and SMU) and co-written by Lily Houghton, the film seems to have the aim of combining movies like Mean Girls and The Craft. The peer pressure of being part of an exclusive group is evident from the start, as Apple essentially forces the others to live by her code or be ostracized (or worse).

One of the biggest problems the film runs into, though, is that any conflict comes from within the group itself. With no pressure coming from other friends, family, or co-workers, the group has to create its own drama. The story quickly gets redundant and stagnant, with almost no plot movement until the final act of the film, when it’s almost too late.

Alloway is clearly aiming for a campy vibe with the film, but the execution leaves something to be desired. The four characters are established in a perfunctory manner, and even as they get fleshed out as the film goes along, there’s nothing to compare them with, so it’s as if they’re just acting off-the-wall in a vacuum.

Those who know the Dallas area well will enjoy the local references (the women hail from Plano, Irving, Grapevine, and Highland Park), and Alloway makes sure to include the looming threat of a tornado into the plot. But since the film was actually filmed in Toronto, there are no visuals that make it feel like Texas, and so any goodwill she gets from setting the film in the city is muted by that lack.

While Reinhart (Riverdale) and Shipp (Storm in X-Men movies) have been around longer, both Pedretti (You) and Tung (The Summer I Turned Pretty) have made big impressions on streaming shows in recent years. The foursome play off each other well even when the story is not that compelling.

If there was a message in Forbidden Fruits that Alloway wanted to get across, she didn’t communicate it clearly enough. Her solid cast can only do so much to sell a story that doesn’t have enough on the bone to be filling. It would have been nice for the movie to be filmed in Dallas, but such is the way of the world in modern Hollywood.

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Forbidden Fruits opens in theaters on March 27.

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