I think it is safe to say that ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ was by no means a fan favorite in Fox’s X-Men cinematic universe and now the cast and crew of ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix‘, who were mostly involved with the previous installment, are chiming in on what they feel went wrong. Apocalypse is without a doubt one of the X-Men’s greatest villains and even Oscar Isaac wasn’t able to save the part with what he had to work with.
Complaints about the look of Apocalypse who has been done better in cosplay, Jennifer Lawrence looking human and not in a disguise or as her blue self for most of the film, Sophie Turner’s rushed character evolution, and the problematic take on Professor X and Magneto who both felt out of character were all problems expressed with ‘X-Men: Apocalypse.’ This giant disaster (no, not going to call it a comic film) just seemed to make the wrong choices at every turn. We won’t even mention the Hugh Jackman Wolverine cameo which didn’t feel natural to the rest of the film in the slightest.
According to Simon Kinberg who directed ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ and wrote ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’:
“I think we took our eye off what has always been the bedrock of the franchise which is these characters. It became about global destruction and visual effects over emotion and character.”
Speaking of character, what he learned from the last film will be incorporated into ‘Dark Phoenix’:
“One of the things I went into this film wanting to do is obviously focus on the characters and give them real emotions to play and come up with a theme that would make it feel relevant and necessary in today’s world”
Producer Hutch Parker added in that ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ was a film which evolved from start to finish and not all of the narrative pieces seemed to evolve with it:
“It’s always dangerous if your script is evolving while you’re shooting. Certainly, in hindsight, we all feel like the genre has been evolving aesthetically and tonally and that the film didn’t. There’s a lot that I think is very good in the film but, as a whole, it was struggling to find ways to coalesce, narratively emotionally and in terms of plot. Aesthetically, it felt sort of dated relative to an evolution you were seeing play out everywhere else. We learned a lot from that.”
Sophie Turner, our current Jean Grey who is about to blossom into the Phoenix wants the next film to be more grounded. Well, as grounded as a cosmic force of death and rebirth that is roaming around the galaxy with a mind of its own and a penchant for redheads can be:
“It is so gritty and there are so many fantastical things in this movie and we really wanted it to resonate with every member of the audience who watches it so we had to make it so real as well. You still get that sense of escapism when people start flying but there’s so much reality in it. I think it will really affect people. And the way Simon shot it — the majority of this movie is handheld, like Steadicam.”
After the last few installments, fans have been losing faith in the non-R-rated takes on mutant kind and ideally this is a course which will be corrected in the upcoming film. With a change in directors, we might be headed in the right direction. The first promotional shots have looked pretty amazing but it still is too early to know if this will filter throughout the entire film.
Do you think that ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ will right the wrongs of the current trilogy of X-Men films? Will the non-R-rated X-Men movies still be able to pull in a positive box office draw? Share your thoughts below True Believers!
Source: Entertainment Weekly
