In light of the bad reviews the new Dark Phoenix movie is receiving, I thought I’d write my quick first impressions as a fan of both X-Men comics and movies.

The main thing to know going in is that Dark Phoenix is a much darker, grittier film than its predecessors First Class, Days of Future Past and Apocalypse.  There isn’t much in the way of humor or fun. This is a major plus to me. I am sick of how formulaic superhero movies have become. It is certainly how to please a crowd and make money, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I’m bored of it. Captain Marvel was a major disappointment to me on every level except its soundtrack. Can we not give a girl a more original script?

The problem with Dark Phoenix is it started out strong and ended weakly. The acting is incomparable and the darker subject and look to the movie sucked me right in. I prefer the more serious X-Men story lines. This felt like the X-Men to me.

My biggest complaint of practically every super hero movie made is the failure of incorporating a good villain.  I’m looking at you, every Spider-Man movie except Into the Spiderverse. Dark Phoenix could have benefited from any number of amazing villains from the comics. I know there are only about 5000 villains so it may have been difficult. (sarcasm)

READ MY TOP MARVEL VILLAINS PICKS

As it’s been mentioned a million times over on every social media channel, why did they even choose to do another movie based on Dark Phoenix? There are 100s of storylines over decades of X-Men comics. It’s not like they’re out of amazing material to draw from. Literally everyone wants to see a Rogue & Gambit movie.

Summary: if you like the serious X-Men comics, give this a try. If you like the goofier versions of X-Men, you may be disappointed. This really isn’t a movie for most kids. Especially considering the trailers included It 2 and Annabelle 2.

Post note: please please please let Mysterio kick ass in Spider-Man Far From Home