on X-Men: Dark Phoenix

The full review is done and will post this weekend. Here’s the opening followed by the score:

There's a very thin line between "drama" and "unintentional comedy." It can be very hard to tell if the emotion you're conveying is going to translate to the audience being moved or if there's something in the shot that will cause eyes to roll. It's such a difficult tightrope to walk it's been said that no one (director, screenwriter, producer, actors) are even aware which side of it they're on until the movie is finished. I suppose that means the blame falls on the editor but I don't think that's fair.

Dark Phoenix was edited by a good editor, so that can't be the reason this movie is such a mess.

Lee Smith is an academy award winner. He has handled the cut on every Chris Nolan movie, as well as other gems like Master and Commander, The Truman Show, and even---keeping within the genre---X-Men: First Class. Those movies had great moments of drama, and managed not to collapse. A comic book movie like First Class has all the cornball stuff you expect in an X-Men film but everything is played straight (like an X-Men film should) and...it works. The drama feels like drama and there's never a moment when you laugh at how stupid it all is. You buy in. You suspend disbelief. Comic Book movies live and die on such things…

Overall the movie gets a 4/10 from me, with the tired acting, dull directing, and thin screenplay noted as the biggest offenders.

The full review can be found at www.cultofwhatever.com later this weekend.