Dark Phoenix: 10 Ways It's The Worst X-Men Film Yet
3. It Flirts With Interesting Concepts, But Completely Abandons Them
20th Century Fox
By far the most frustrating thing about Dark Phoenix is the fact it actually has a couple of intriguing concepts. When we find the X-Men in 1992, they're no longer the feared outcasts of yesteryear, but instead a fully autonomous superhero team looked fondly upon by humanity. Professor X has a direct line to the POTUS, and children play with toys based on the team's members.
It's quite the departure, but it could so easily have made for a compelling pillar of Dark Phoenix's story. We barely get to see any of the X-Men toss and toile with their newfound fame, and any metaphorical discussions surrounding how governments exploit marginalised labour for their own benefit take a backseat as well.
One of the few characters to actually get an arc in the film is Charles himself. Again, the film occasionally lands on the fact he's become an ego-driven ideologue who's lost sight of the X-Men's purpose, but satisfying answers are never forthcoming.
Both of those ideas could've sustained a genuinely interesting X-Men film, but they're squandered by Dark Phoenix's reluctance to explore this version of nineties America.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
