Dark Phoenix

The spectacle is entertaining, up to a point, but even the digital wizardry wears thin, and Dark Phoenix turns into a standard-brand miasma of explosions, collisions and swirling force fields.

Turner delivers a solid performance as a young woman coming to grips with an unknown force, and James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender maintain the frenemy bond we've grown to love.

A middlin' X-men effort that cheats the saga of its past, present and future, messing with the story-line in unacceptable ways. Plus, it looks big and cheap - but mostly cheap.

Outgunned on the action front by box-office rivals and too nervous to tell a more intimate story, Dark Phoenix leaves the franchise running on empty.

It's as if the writer-director [Simon Kinberg] is using a superhero movie to rediscover the roots of soap opera. His emphasis on everything Young about the franchise swamps everything that's Adult.

It felt terribly, terribly scrappy.

I can’t in good conscience recommend that anyone spend their hard earned money to go see this film in theaters, but if you are a die-hard X-Men fan like me you might find that it’s a surprisingly fun ride.

These Fox X-Men films have been nothing if not inconsistent. But I think "Dark Phoenix" is in the top half of this franchise, due to the honest performances, great action, and decent story.

This time they do justice to the story, not without a few kinks, but still in a way I found entertaining and satisfying.

It's not that Dark Phoenix is a complete disaster - it's that the franchise hasn't changed much in the last 20 years, while the rest of the superhero genre has continued to grow and evolve.