X-Men Dark Phoenix Review: 4 Ups & 6 Downs

Ups...

4. James McAvoy's Solid Performance

James McAvoy is unquestionably the glue desperately straining to hold this thing together.

It certainly helps that he's in the movie more than almost any other major character, and true to McAvoy's rep for never phoning a performance in, he is trying so damn hard to make this thing work.

Even when the dialogue sucks, he's giving it his all, bringing perhaps the only real shred of plausible human emotion to the entire story, even if it's still absolutely neutered and ineffective.

He certainly can't be blamed for what the film gets wrong, and unlike some of his co-stars, manages to escape with his dignity fully in tact.

As a farewell for the character, though, it's a shame he had to chew through such ill-conceived material.