Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Simon Kinberg’s Dark Phoenix: Fiery redhead
Plays like a small-scale, humanly significant trauma drama
Dark Phoenix: “Do world-shattering cosmic powers leave your skin looking dry and fissured?”
It didn’t have to end this way — in such thoroughly standard smash ‘em up fashion, with minor heroes dutifully duking it out with faceless hordes for punchy-power bolt minute after punchy-power-bolt minute until the mayhem quotient has been met and the principals can finally square off for their climactic lightshow. It didn’t have to end with so little emotion, so little meaning — with a sad little speech about evolving, for Phoenix’s sake. It didn’t have to, because a fair chunk of writer-director Simon Kinberg’s take on one of the more famous storylines in Marvel Comics’ history plays less like a superhero movie and more like a small-scale, humanly significant trauma drama. Except the trauma victim will maybe destroy the world if she can’t cope.
We open, a la Shazam!, with a little kid in the backseat of a car who inadvertently causes a frightening, slo-mo, psyche-scarring crash. Except this little kid has mutant superpowers, and so gets scooped up in the protective arms of Charles Xavier and taken into the X-Men family. But there are lots of ways to screw up as a parent (surprise, surprise, it’s Xavier who gets the movie’s real emotional arc), especially when you’re trying to make the world a safe place for your kid through an unending PR campaign of heroic do-goodery. That part of the story was surprisingly thoughtful and engaging — almost tragic, even. But it seems it wasn’t explodey enough, fighty enough, actiony enough for a supermovie. Because what do you know: here comes the alien invasion, and the save-the-world stakes, and the sad sameness of fulfilled expectations.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Simon Kinberg’s Dark Phoenix: Fiery redhead
Plays like a small-scale, humanly significant trauma drama
Simon Kinberg’s Dark Phoenix: Fiery redhead
Plays like a small-scale, humanly significant trauma drama
Dark Phoenix: “Do world-shattering cosmic powers leave your skin looking dry and fissured?”
It didn’t have to end this way — in such thoroughly standard smash ‘em up fashion, with minor heroes dutifully duking it out with faceless hordes for punchy-power bolt minute after punchy-power-bolt minute until the mayhem quotient has been met and the principals can finally square off for their climactic lightshow. It didn’t have to end with so little emotion, so little meaning — with a sad little speech about evolving, for Phoenix’s sake. It didn’t have to, because a fair chunk of writer-director Simon Kinberg’s take on one of the more famous storylines in Marvel Comics’ history plays less like a superhero movie and more like a small-scale, humanly significant trauma drama. Except the trauma victim will maybe destroy the world if she can’t cope.
We open, a la Shazam!, with a little kid in the backseat of a car who inadvertently causes a frightening, slo-mo, psyche-scarring crash. Except this little kid has mutant superpowers, and so gets scooped up in the protective arms of Charles Xavier and taken into the X-Men family. But there are lots of ways to screw up as a parent (surprise, surprise, it’s Xavier who gets the movie’s real emotional arc), especially when you’re trying to make the world a safe place for your kid through an unending PR campaign of heroic do-goodery. That part of the story was surprisingly thoughtful and engaging — almost tragic, even. But it seems it wasn’t explodey enough, fighty enough, actiony enough for a supermovie. Because what do you know: here comes the alien invasion, and the save-the-world stakes, and the sad sameness of fulfilled expectations.
Commentsmauricio13
This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of the usage agreement.
June 10, 2019