Dark Phoenix (2019)
Genre: Action, Adventure
Director: Simon Kinberg
Starring: Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan
Duration: 114 minutes
Class: 12A
KRS Releasing Ltd
Bringing to an end the new saga of X-men films, Dark Phoenix takes another stab at a classic Marvel comics storyline already envisioned in 2006’s X-men: The Last Stand.
Following the universe altering events of X-men: Apocalypse, the mutants respond to a distress call coming from space.
During the recuse mission, a stranded Jean Grey is attacked by a mysterious cosmic force. Jean survives the ordeal, with the force now residing inside her making her powers stronger, while also making her increasingly unstable.
With Jean’s powers spiralling beyond her control the fragility of the X-men family is tested as they must come together to save Jean from herself, and from entities which seek to weaponise her terrifying new abilities. Critics seemed to find Dark Phoenix middling to disappointing, hailing Simon Kinberg’s directorial debut as potentially interesting but unsatisfactory.
“Like most good superhero movies, Dark Phoenix operates on two levels, comic-book fantastical and psychological,” writes David Edelstein for Vulture.
“Like most not-so-good ones, it doesn’t do justice to either aspect.”
“The overqualified cast do their best to inject some passion into the proceedings but the momentum drained out of these X-Men movies long ago,” says David Sims of The Atlantic.
“Dark Phoenix should serve as a fittingly perfunctory farewell.”
“The best X-Men movies contain a degree of subtext (often about outsiders), but Dark Phoenix is all flat text,” says Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com
“Everyone says what they mean, feel, and need at all times, leading to dialogue that gets so repetitive that it becomes numbing for the long stretches between poorly-directed action sequences.”
Ratings
IMDB: 6/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 22%
Empire: 3 stars
Booksmart (2019)
Genre: Comedy
Director: Olivia Wilde
Starring: Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Billie Lourde, Skyler Gisondo, Diana Silvers, Eduardo Franco, Jessica Williams, Jason Sudekis, Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte
Duration: 88 minutes
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd
Best known for her long-time run on House M.D., Olivia Wilde gets behind the camera for her directorial debut in Booksmart. Best friends and straight-A students Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) have put their grades above their social lives all through high school and both got into a very good school.
However, upon realising that their classmates also got into good schools while finding time to let loose and party, Molly and Amy decide they must have one blow out night of partying before they graduate and go off to college.
Critics and audiences alike seem to have received Booksmart quite warmly.
“Booksmart is a teen sex romp well suited for the summer of 2019: feminist but not preachy, raunchy but not nasty, emotionally intelligent but not sentimental. It establishes the 35-year-old Wilde as a director to watch and confirms both Feldstein and Dever as emerging comic stars,” writes Dana Stevens for Slate.
“It’s an energising blast to watch two geeky but undaunted girls not only fight for but joyously reclaim their right to party.”
“What good high school movies do is take the basics of the teenage condition and refocus them for a specific generation’s point of view,” says Katie Rife of The AV Club.
“That’s where Booksmart excels. It’s a high school movie that doesn’t have sadistic bullies shoving helpless nerds into lockers, just a bunch of kids that, for all their flaws, are kind, funny, worldly, whip-smart and unapologetically themselves.”
Ratings
IMDB: 7.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
Empire: 5 stars