Dark Phoenix

The Children's Center, where my sister and her husband both work, has a huge benefit this time every year and it has been my responsibility to take Sean for the weekend (we have gone swimming, to drive-in movies, to the zoo, and to museums).  This year he didn't want to spend the weekend with me because we are going on a little trip next week and he thought we might annoy each other if we spent too much time together before we went!  I suggested that we could still go to a movie and he was pretty lukewarm about it until I mentioned Dark Phoenix.  He is a huge fan of the X-Men franchise (we went to X-Men: Apocalypse during one of these weekends) so he was immediately on board!  Despite the bad reviews we both, but especially Sean, loved it!  Set a decade after the events in X-Men: Apocalypse, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) are sent by Professor X (James McAvoy) to save astronauts on the Space Shuttle from a solar flare.  During this mission Jean absorbs the energy from the solar flare to save one final astronaut and miraculously survives, earning the nickname Phoenix.  She now has even stronger powers that she struggles to control and, when she learns something about her past which was repressed by Charles, the rage she feels causes her to lash out and she kills one her friends.  She turns to Magneto (Michael Fassbender) but he wants to kill her when he learns what happened.  The mutants then become divided over what they should do about Jean but must unite when an alien being named Vuk (Jessica Chastain) wants Jean's powers.  While some of the CGI in this movie isn't very good I really liked most of the action sequences, especially those in space and on the train.  I also really loved the atmospheric score by Hans Zimmer.  Turner gives a great performance as Jean, particularly when she is confronted with the consequences of her actions.  I have always really enjoyed McAvoy as Charles and Fassbender as Erik in this franchise and this movie highlights their shortcomings and they, too, have to deal with the consequences of their actions in several very poignant scenes.  Each of the mutants has a moment to shine and I especially enjoyed the Beast's character arc.  This is reportedly the final movie in this particular franchise (we could have movies about new mutants) and I absolutely loved the final resolution between Charles and Erik because it hearkens back to one of my favorite scenes in X-Men: Days of Future Past.  I really enjoyed this movie (Sean loved it) so I would recommend it.