Dark Phoenix

Skippable, and it is the franchise's second failed attempt at the same story. The Last Stand compressed the Phoenix saga into half a film and was criticised for it; this one gives it the whole running time and arrives at something thinner.

The production was finished under a company being sold. The Disney acquisition was in progress throughout, the third act was reportedly reshot entirely after test screenings, moving a finale set in space to a train, and the release was delayed twice. Nobody involved appears to have believed it would matter, and it performed worse than any film in the series.

The central problem is that Jean is given no interiority. The plot is a woman absorbing a cosmic force and becoming dangerous, and the film keeps cutting away from her to men deciding what to do about her, which is the exact fault of the 2006 version. Sophie Turner is not given a scene where she wants something.

Jessica Chastain's antagonist is a shapeshifter with no name and no stated objective. The train sequence is competently staged and arrives too late. At a hundred and thirteen minutes it is the shortest of the prequels and still drags. Nothing requires it.