'X-Men: Dark Phoenix' has a hard time making things compelling

When it comes to cinematic world-building, the X-Men franchise struggles to commit for continuity. This has always been the case when they come up with a new film, as everything feels like it was starting all over again rather than move things forward.

"X-Men: Dark Phoenix" is no exemption. It feels it has a hard time to hold on something compelling because it feels like it's alienating itself from its previous installments. The film follows Jean Grey, a character they barely developed, into a believable, complex antagonist/ struggling heroine. The remaining team, mostly composed of the characters we weren't allowed to dive deeper before, got their much-deserved (but still lacking) focus this time.

And with this, the movie struggles for an ounce of empathy when they needed it. In fact, the movie keeps shifting motivations for its characters to the point that I just feel exhausted by following them.

I'll still commend Simon Kinberg here. First full-length film filmmaker who had gone through a crazy amount of reshoots for "Dark Phoenix." While watching the movie, I honestly did not know which scene is recently added or not.

The cast is also superb here, going for very serviceable efforts. It's just I want to see the treatment of their characters shine more, narrative-wise. But it's the end. This "X-Men" franchise is moving to the Disney banner, and with high chances of complete reboot to fit in with Kevin Feige's heroes at Marvel Cinematic Universe.