X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

The Low-Down: In the age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the Avengers, it can be hard to forget that the X-Men were actually here first. The hyper-kinetic, gloriously operatic X-Men (2000) made blockbuster superhero movies cool again – plucking several of Marvel Comics’ best characters out of cult comic books and launching them into the mainstream. It’s a shame that such an iconic franchise is ending with a whimper rather than a bang. X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the final installment in the series – because it has to be, now that Fox is merging with Disney/Marvel. But the film does itself no favours in revisiting a storyline that was already told, albeit rather poorly, in The Last Stand (2006).

The Story: We’ve already met the ridiculously powerful cosmic force that is the Phoenix: it latched onto Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey over a decade ago, and decimated a bunch of fan-favourite characters in its fiery wake. This time around, the Phoenix finds a host in Sophie Turner’s younger Jean Grey, unlocking past trauma and present angst as it burns through the childhood defenses put in place in Jean’s mind by Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy). As Jean goes on the run, her former allies rush to find her – some set on protecting her, others on eliminating the threat she poses to their safety and loved ones. But can they save her from Vuk (Jessica Chastain), the ice-cold leader of an alien race hellbent on claiming the Phoenix’s power for herself?

The Good: There’s actually a decent amount of good seeded throughout Dark Phoenix. Most intriguing of all is the film’s darker take on Xavier – he’s usually portrayed as an unequivocally good (and therefore slightly boring) character, devoted to his young charges and leading the fight for a better, more unbiased world. Paired with a fascinating, almost petulant performance from McAvoy, Dark Phoenix reminds us that, sometimes, the road to Hell on Earth is paved with good intentions. Long-time X-Men writer Simon Kinberg makes his directorial debut, and proves more than equal to the task of whipping up fantastically thrilling action sequences. He peppers the film with plenty of lovely imagery and aesthetic touches: from Jean’s hair taking on a life of its own when she’s in Phoenix mode, to Quicksilver (Evan Peters) speed-climbing a whirlwind of debris.

The Not-So-Good: It’s hard to shake the feeling that there isn’t much reason for this film to exist, other than giving Kinberg the opportunity to take a second stab at the same story. (He co-wrote The Last Stand, to eternal fan derision.) Dark Phoenix edges closer to the classic Chris Claremont storyline in the comics, but it never quite fulfils its own potential. The Xavier subplot doesn’t get anywhere near the true depth or darkness it deserves. Chastain is brilliant casting, but for no real reason. If the screenplay had supported her better, Chastain could have transformed Vuk into a properly sympathetic antagonist; instead, she’s stuck in the key of one-dimensional supervillain. We get a peek at Genosha, a mutant safe haven under the governance of Erik Lensherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender) – but we don’t linger there.

Phoenix Rising: Turner isn’t given much to do other than glower and fret, but she does it all well enough. The trouble is Jean Grey as a character. In all her incarnations, including in the comics, she gains immeasurable power, but loses all agency. She seems strong, but is actually a frustratingly passive protagonist. That’s compounded here by literally everyone around her constantly telling her what to do – from Charles, Erik and the annoyingly maternal Raven Darkholme (Jennifer Lawrence), to her well-meaning boyfriend, Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan), and the relentless Vuk. Is Jean supposed to master her emotions, to repress her powers, to stay quiet? Or is she supposed to unleash them, to revel in them, to metaphorically shout about her remarkable abilities? It’s a conundrum that exists in the source material – and this film makes a strong case for retiring Claremont’s Dark Phoenix for good.

Recommended? If you’ve ever loved the X-Men, you’ll probably want to say goodbye to this incarnation of these beloved characters before they’re resurrected in the MCU. But this is a decidedly middling installment in the franchise – not as dreadful as Apocalypse, but nowhere near the giddy heights of X-Men or Logan.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (2014)

No one expected great things from Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, the 2011 reboot of a cult sci-fi franchise that nobody asked for. There just seems to be something faintly camp and ridiculous about its premise: a monkey acquires intelligence, language and sentience – from James Franco, no less – and leads his simian brethren in a rebellion against mankind? Sure. Okay. And yet, surprising critics and audiences, Rise made its alternate universe terrifyingly, beautifully credible through its mix of sincere character work, lofty sci-fi and ground-breaking CGI. Miraculously, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is even better – it blends even more stunning animation and heart-pounding action with huger ideas and bigger emotions, finding within its fiercely-fought battles the metaphor and menace of every conflict and war that has ever plagued mankind.

A decade after Earth has been ravaged by the simian virus unleashed at the end of Rise, Caesar (played in full mo-cap by Andy Serkis) has settled his well-evolved community of apes high atop a mountain. But, one day, their idyll is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a band of human survivors led by the kindly, open-minded Malcolm (Jason Clarke). As it turns out, the apes have settled upon a non-functioning hydro-electric dam – the last chance a nearby human colony has of restoring its power supply for good. Caesar and Malcolm forge a tentative alliance – one that rests on a powder-keg of tension and mistrust. Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) urges the human settlers to build up their stockpile of weapons in case they have to take the ape stronghold by force; while Koba (Toby Kebbell) first tries to warn, before he tries to manipulate, his fellow apes against the human menace in their midst.

Dawn carries over one element from its predecessor: the increasingly urgent identity crisis and soul-searching that come when man and ape try to figure out how to live with one another. What is humanity? And what is base, animalistic behaviour? Humans can make music, as we see in a heartrendingly sweet moment when the human survivors hear music again for the first time in years. But they also make weapons, which the apes pick up in order to level the playing field. The growth of understanding and respect between Caesar and Malcolm is balanced against the sheer hatred of humanity that runs through Koba in the film’s second half, and the suspicions and doubt experienced by Caesar’s own son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) about his father’s ‘human-loving tendencies’.

All the more impressive is the fact that the film takes no sides: every character feels real, and no one is truly the villain of the piece. Or, to be more precise, even the antagonists have perfectly logical, heartrending reasons for behaving in the way they do. As Koba regresses ever more into a spitting, irrational animal, we can never forget what he suffered at the hands of human scientists: the scars and anger he bears are the legacy of human neglect and cruelty. The same goes for Dreyfus: as he readies the humans for war, we’re allowed a peek into the heart of the man when the return of electricity gives him glimpses of a past that he can never forget. In these moments of insight, the film goes from good to great.

It might seem odd to say so, but Dawn is also one of the finest movies made in recent memory that focuses so squarely on the outbreak and tragic inevitability of war. As the fragile peace established between the two similar but not identical tribes ebbs and flows, the film explores in intelligent, sensitive detail how conflicts can begin – and lays out in excruciating fashion how having perfectly right-minded individuals on both sides of a divide is no guarantee of peace. Director Matt Reeves handles the descent into battle beautifully: every step towards war is a small one, whether deliberate or unintentional, and builds to a crescendo of mutually-assured destruction. The parallels with real-world conflicts, from guerrilla warfare to nuclear destruction, are rife, and will strike you in ways you’d never expect from a seemingly frivolous sci-fi blockbuster about apes taking over the world.

As for the outer trappings of the film, these are truly spectacular – the animation is astounding, especially considering that the motion-capture performed for many of the ape characters took place outside of a conventional studio setting. Soundtracked by Michael Giacchino’s bitingly tense score, the action sequences are fantastic: they thrum with action and inventiveness, as the apes storm the human settlement, or tumble through the air in a storm of fire. The cast is uniformly excellent: Serkis, Kobbell and Thurston, in particular, are shrouded by CGI but nevertheless turn in performances bursting with spirit and soul. Clarke plays his one-note “sensible, good man” very well, and Keri Russell gets more to do as the medically-trained Ellie than most female leads in such blockbusters typically would.

The question is whether audiences can buy completely into the universe created by the film. As was the case with Rise, Reeves and his entire cast and crew have committed wholly to this fiction: Dawn takes itself deadly seriously, never once winking at the audience in acknowledgement of its slightly campy premise. That is, arguably, entirely necessary for the film to reach the heights that it does. If it weren’t completely earnest and sincere, Dawn‘s emotional moments – of which there are many – would not be as successful, or as well-earned.

However, viewers who remain detached from it all would find it easier to spot the film’s draggier moments, or to take note of its odd collapsing of time when the apes attack the human colony. They might also sorely feel the lack of levity in the film; there’s only a brief moment of comic clowning by Koba which, unfortunately, shades very quickly into horror and tragedy.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to deny that Dawn is a powerful, thought-provoking entry into the Apes canon, and far better than even the well-received Rise. In making a war between man and ape so chillingly plausible, it easily becomes one of the boldest, darkest and smartest sci-fi films yet to be constructed on a possibly rather hokey premise. Best of all, whether you’re here for its philosophy or its explosions, Dawn pays off in spades: giving you plenty to think about even as it teases, pleases and confounds your senses.

Basically: A new dawn indeed – one that’s bracing, smart, philosophical and explosive.

Paranorman (2012)

For some strange reason, ideas for animated movies these days seem to come in cycles – for a while there, we had movies about fish (Finding Nemo and Shark Tale) and bugs (Antz and A Bug’s Life) being churned out by different animation studios within a few months of one another. This year, that confluence seems to have happened again with a slew of animated movies boasting a taste for the macabre: Paranorman leads the pack, with its protagonist’s spooky ability to see and talk to ghosts, but in the cinema today we were treated to trailers for two more movies about the undead – Hotel Transylvania, featuring ghouls and monsters galore, and Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, a project itself exhumed from the grave featuring a little boy who… well, exhumes his deceased pet dog and resurrects him à la Frankenstein.

I’ve no idea why this happens – how the collective cultural zeitgeist and the years it takes to produce one of these films somehow manages to funnel down into one particular moment in time when all of them are released more or less in tandem. I do know, however, that Paranorman has set the bar pretty high for the films that have yet to hit cinemas – the movie is a delightful mix of comedy and B-movie horror, at once quirky pastiche, cheesy tribute and heartfelt coming-of-age story about Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), a loner outcast of a kid who, along with all the people in his life, has to come to terms with who he is and what makes him special. Norman’s parents Sandra (Leslie Mann) and Perry (Jeff Garlin) just can’t quite figure out why their kid can’t be normal – or at least pretend that he can’t talk to dead people. He’s dismissed out of hand by his blonde airhead sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick), ragged mercilessly at school by Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and his posse of bullies, and stalked by his weird uncle, Mr Prenderghast (John Goodman), who keeps nattering on about how Norman has to save everyone he knows by using his special power on the 300th anniversary of the day a wicked witch laid a curse upon his town of Blithe Hollow.

The story, actually, isn’t an especially original one – in fact, Paranorman takes pride in cobbling together inspiration from handfuls of different sources, flitting as it does from spooky thriller about a kid who sees dead people (Sixth Sense, much?) to a standard haunting, through to crazed mobs hunting zombies and a evil witch whose accompanying myth has grown so very large that it barely reflects reality anymore. The references and in-jokes come fast and furious, even as the movie weaves its own very modern, tongue-in-cheek sensibility into proceedings – while paying homage to convention, Paranorman has no problem in merrily sending it up as well. So you get a car chase in which a creature of the undead is clinging to the car, for instance, but one peppered with knowing winks and sly asides to the audience.

And all this in a movie about the undead that boasts a huge, beating heart – in the mix of gore and kitsch and satire, Paranorman never loses sight of its characters nor does it make light of their problems. As a result, the film has a rich emotional vein running right through it, as Norman realises that he isn’t alone after all when the adorable fat kid in class Neil (Tucker Albrizzi) insists on befriending him. Norman’s tense relationship with his family members – including his especially wary dad and his grandma (Elaine Stritch) – might well bring a tear to your eye come the closing credits, and helps ground Norman’s final confrontation with the witch of legend in a way that rings true.

As for the animation: these days, I’ve almost reached the point where I’m contemplating giving up on watching 3D animated movies in 3D – there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly new in having cartoon figures burst out of the background into my eyeballs. Paranorman, however, proves more than any animated adventure in recent memory (even the stop-motion Aardman Animations project The Pirates! Band Of Misfits) that there’s still reason to slap those glasses over your own and keep shoving them up uncomfortably during a movie. Paranorman shares the same ramshackle charm particular to most stop-motion animated films – not because the motions are slightly jerky, but because it feels both real and other-worldly in a way that animation rendered by drawing or modelling can’t quite match. In this film, you will find yourself marvelling at the tiny details that leap out – Norman’s bristle-brush hair, or the way his eyebrows beetle up and down his forehead in a way both smooth and painstaking. The aesthetic of the film is gorgeous as well, with burnt sierra sunsets painted across the sky as Norman heads down the path of his destiny.

Paranorman might not have the instant pedigree of Frankenweenie, that being Nightmare Before Christmas maestro Burton’s attempt to expand to a full-length film the short feature that got him fired from Disney years ago. Nor does it boast the hip monster count and gag rate of Hotel Transylvania as seen in its trailer. But it is smart, silly, heartfelt and utterly gorgeous –  so give it a chance to win you over with its goofy, mock-goth charm and the heart it wears so proudly on its sleeve.