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I was trying to be open-minded, but X-Men: Dark Phoenix deserves its mediocre reviews. At least the first third of the film does; I didn't even make it to the halfway mark. Granted, my opinion was already veering towards negative when I realized that the premise was pulling heavily from the "woman accidentally and/or traumatically is endowed with tremendous power, and it destroys her" trope. I mean, yeah, it's a movie about Jean Grey, so I should have known, but I'm really tired of that template.
This is part of why I enjoyed Captain Marvel so much: a main plot point is the accidental power gift, but instead of that destroying Carol, it, well, empowers her.
The other problem with the first third of Dark Phoenix is that the writers didn't ground the character well enough; we barely met child Jean, then we jump forward to the power-bestowing mission for adult Jean, and we never get a sense of why we should care about this character.
Currently I'm debating the age-old question: To buy, or not to buy. I don't trust Disney Star Wars to tie together their new EU novels to the films. However: Justina Ireland?!?!!! I really liked her book Dread Nation, and she's the co-author of *takes a deep breath* Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Spark of the Resistance. Rey! Poe! Rose! People who like those characters have said good things!
But a) there's no Finn??? and b) as I said already, I don't have confidence in LucasFilm's ability to coordinate extra materials with their movies. What if I really like something in the novel, but no reference to it is made in episode IX? (This is what happened the last time I bought a trilogy-connected novel.)
This is part of why I enjoyed Captain Marvel so much: a main plot point is the accidental power gift, but instead of that destroying Carol, it, well, empowers her.
The other problem with the first third of Dark Phoenix is that the writers didn't ground the character well enough; we barely met child Jean, then we jump forward to the power-bestowing mission for adult Jean, and we never get a sense of why we should care about this character.
Currently I'm debating the age-old question: To buy, or not to buy. I don't trust Disney Star Wars to tie together their new EU novels to the films. However: Justina Ireland?!?!!! I really liked her book Dread Nation, and she's the co-author of *takes a deep breath* Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Spark of the Resistance. Rey! Poe! Rose! People who like those characters have said good things!
But a) there's no Finn??? and b) as I said already, I don't have confidence in LucasFilm's ability to coordinate extra materials with their movies. What if I really like something in the novel, but no reference to it is made in episode IX? (This is what happened the last time I bought a trilogy-connected novel.)