History YMMV / DarkPhoenix

** Vuk, the main antagonist of the film, is also disliked for being a [[FlatCharacter dull and generic villain]] who has little characterization beyond manipulating Jean Grey into trying to [[GenericDoomsdayVillain destroy the world for her own ends]]. The speculation by some that Creator/JessicaChastain was phoning in her performance doesn't help.

** Jessica Chastain's cold, Emma Frost-esque demeanor and ruthless drive take nothing away from her own attractiveness.

* TheScrappy: You would be hard pressed for to find anyone who actually likes [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic Mystique]] in this one. This even includes [[https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/1660798/jennifer-lawrence-x-men-dark-phoenix-mystique-exit-quit-marvel Jennifer Lawrence]], who was sick of the role and franchise by this point.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Charles Xavier. He is blamed for Jean losing control and it's implied that the audience is supposed to agree that he was being selfish; caring more about his ego than the students. However, most viewers ''agree'' with him. As detailed in InformedWrongness, Xavier has created a trusted bond between mutants and humans, a vast improvement over them being vivisected and/or mutants using their powers for crime. Despite Mystique's claims, Charles isn't forcing kids into dangerous situations as a publicity stunt; he's sending willing adults to use their abilities to help people. Also, creating mental blocks in Jean's mind arguably wasn't done to control her, but to protect her and others; Jean's powers become wildly unstable when she's emotionally distressed. What could be more distressing than [[spoiler:being a little girl who accidentally killed her mother and is disowned by her father]]? Charles clearly cares about Jean [[spoiler:(when Jean goes inside his mind to telepathically confront him, it's shown that he still views her as the little girl he took in and he says he only wanted to "keep the pain away")]]. While he could've handled the situation better, his intentions appear sympathetic. However, it can be argued that we are supposed to sympathize with Xavier as Jean forgives him and agrees that his actions were done out of love. Adding to his point, when confronted by Mystique about his intentions for the missions, she accuses it of being for his personal fame. He reminds Raven of their previous treatment as criminals and they're always "one bad day away" from being set back to it; their missions and PR prevent that. When Jean loses control (and Erik and Hank go on RoaringRampageOfRevenge), the government doesn't hesitate to cut all ties with the X-Men, begin cracking down on mutant freedom ''all over again'' and the public deems all mutants a threat. This, in which, ''proves Charles was right''.

* TheScrappy: You would be hard pressed for to find anyone who actually likes [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic Mystique]] in this one.

* TheScrappy: You would be hard pressed for to find anyone who actually likes [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic Mystique]].

* FoeYay: With a side order of LesYay. Vuk spends a large portion of the movie seeking Jean for the Phoenix Force, and when she finds her this kicks in fully. She tells Jean in glowing terms how special and powerful she is, and [[spoiler:the scene where she takes the Phoenix Force involves her cupping Jean's face in her hands and embracing her in a way a lot like a lover]].

* EightDeadlyWords: The disastrous box office results and poor reviews (from both critics ''and'' fans) tells a lot about what most of the audience thought of the film. Various {{Out Of Character Moment}}s throughout the storyline didn't help either; even the biggest fans of Raven noted how it was hard to mourn for her given [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic the way she acted]] for most of this film. For many fans, the performances of Creator/JamesMcAvoy and Creator/MichaelFassbender are among the only appealing characterizations in this film (See Main/TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter below).

* EndingAversion: Judging by the film's disappointing box office returns, even the fans who were the biggest supporters of Fox's ''X-Men'' movies preferred ''[[Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast Days of Future Past]]'' and/or ''Film/{{Logan}}'' as the GrandFinale for the film series, both of which were highly acclaimed among fans and critics alike and were considered to have provided satisfactory endings that shouldn't be followed up on and [[ToughActToFollow couldn't be topped]].

** The Phoenix Force, a powerful cosmic force, resembles a sentient cloud. [[Film/FantasticFour2005 Where have we seen that before in Fox's Marvel films?]] The Galactus comparisons get funnier when you consider that Galactus quite infamously destroyed the Skrull home-world in the past of the Marvel Universe, and that the D'Bari in this movie are Skrull stand-ins.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: Most people were wary of film's premise given that the last time the Dark Phoenix plot line was adapted on screen was in the largely-disliked ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'' -- a film which also had ''the same writer''.

* ItWasHisSled: [[spoiler:Jean Grey ends up killing Mystique by accident during a moment of lost control.]] Not helped by [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil the trailers effectively spelling this out]].

* FanonDiscontinuity: For some fans, ''Film/{{Logan}}'' is the true finale of the original ''X-Men'' series rather than this movie. Alternately, ''Logan'' is a BadFuture story and ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' is the proper finale.

* {{Sequelitis}}: This movie received the lowest critical score out of all the main X-Men movies, with critics saying that it's a very disappointing send-off to a franchise that restarted the comic book movie genre. Most notably, it received ''worse'' review aggregate scores on Website/RottenTomatoes and Metacritic than even ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'' and ''Film/XMenApocalypse'', which are considered among the worst in the series, with some critics and fans actually preferring ''The Last Stand'' over this movie.

** After much speculation as to who Creator/JessicaChastain could be playing, from Lilandra to Cassandra Nova to Skrull Queen Veranke, it turns out she's playing... Vuk, a one-off antagonist from ''Avengers #4'' (a 1963 story which had ''zero'' to do with the X-Men).

* TooBleakStoppedCaring: A huge part of the general negative consensus of the film stems from the sheer amount of darkness that makes the plot hard to care about, when the plot could have focused on new concepts such as Quiksilver's relation to Magneto (''from the previous film'') instead of having yet another film where one of the main antagonists is yet another mutant.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: A huge part of the general negative consensus of the film stems from the sheer amount of darkness that makes the plot hard to care about, when the plot could have focused on new concepts such as Quiksilver's relation to Magneto (''from the previous film'') instead of having yet another film where one of the main antagonists is yet another mutant.
** Points of contention tend to include Mystique's death when fans had gotten more attached to her (or at the very least gotten to know her more) in the previous films, Jean becoming uncontrollably possessed by the Phoenix and set on destroying everything (''and everyone'') in her path to drive the plot forward, Xavier being harshly blamed for Jean's actions and the mutant situation despite his lack of control over them, and the government being given an excuse once again to use lethal force against mutants after this was alleviated several times in previous films. Also see Main/EightDeadlyWords below.

** Points of contention tend to include Mystique's death when fans had gotten more attached to her (or at the very least gotten to know her more) in the previous films, Jean being uncontrollably possessed by the Phoenix and destroying everything (''and everyone'') in her path as a result to drive the plot forward, Xavier being blamed harshly by the others for Jean's actions he had no control over and the mutant situations as a whole, and the government being given an excuse once again to use lethal force against mutants after this was alleviated several times in previous films. Also see Main/EightDeadlyWords below.
* EightDeadlyWords: The disastrous box office results and poor reviews (from both critics ''and'' fans) tells a lot about what most of the audience thought of the film. Various {{Out Of Character Moment}}s throughout the storyline didn't help either; even the biggest fans of Raven noted how it was hard to mourn for her given [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic the way she acted]] for most of this film. For many fans, the performances of Creator/JamesMcAvoy and Creator/MichaelFassbender are among the only appealing characterisations in this film (See Main/TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter below).

** With the MCU. It's gone so far that after the buyout of Fox by Disney, fans of the MCU wanted to see Marvel Studios shelve it permanently... even though it wouldn't have been financially feasible in any way for Disney to do so (as, even in the event of a flop, Fox and Disney by extension would get some money back). After the movie bombed, a theory came from Fox fans, hypothesizing that the movie was sabotaged by Disney to serve ''Film/{{Captain Marvel|2019}}'', though the director said that the ending was changed at the request of test audiences, and Disney did not have authority over Fox at the time that the movie was wrapping up post-production. [[note]]The merger completed less than three months before the release of the film; Disney's only actions on the project were apparently to give the movie a last-minute marketing push. It was also in Disney's best interests to have the movie do as well as possible, even if there was no intent to do a follow-up, since the Fox purchase was so expensive.[[/note]]

* InformedWrongness: Charles Xavier is portrayed as being in the wrong for hiding an AwfulTruth from Jean Grey regarding her past, which everyone [[CallingTheOldManOut calls him out on]]. [[spoiler:But it's clearly shown that her father didn't want anything to do with her after she accidentally killed her mother, even deeming her a "lost cause" with no hope, and willingly gave her to Charles with no hesitation. Furthermore, he even disposed of her old photos in order to erase all memory of her from his life. Meanwhile, Charles only wanted to protect her from being hurt by this tragic past, giving her a new and loving home.]] The movie also calls him out for trying to use the X-Men as a means to generate good PR for the entire Mutant species, but considering that [[Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast they were being vivisected by the government merely 19 years prior]], trying to make heroes out of his now-adult and willing students is a logical course of action in a world where many of them are still hated and feared for their unique abilities.

** Even before the film was released, many detractors expressed frustration that, rather than take advantage of the clean slate offered by ''Days Of Future Past'' and tell new stories with the cast introduced in ''Apocalypse'', Fox opted for a do-over of a storyline that one of the series' least popular movies already did, and with even less build-up to it.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: A huge part of the general negative consensus of the film stems from the sheer amount of darkness that makes the plot hard to care about, when the plot could have focused on new concepts such as Quiksilver's relation to Magneto (''from the previous film'') instead of having yet another film where one of the main antagonists is yet another mutant.
** Points of contention tend to include Mystique's death when fans had gotten more attached to her (or at the very least gotten to know her more) in the previous films, Jean being uncontrollably possessed by the Phoenix and destroying everything (''and everyone'') in her path as a result to drive the plot forward, Xavier being blamed harshly by the others for Jean's actions he had no control over and the mutant situations as a whole, and the government being given an excuse once again to use lethal force against mutants even though this was solved several times in previous films. It doesn't help that, timeline technicalities aside, in the future timeline Mystique's death would have made no sense as she is present in X-Men films of a later chronology. Also see Main/EightDeadlyWords below.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: A huge part of the general negative consensus of the film stems from the sheer amount of darkness that makes the plot hard to care about, when the plot could have focused on new concepts such as Quiksilver's relation to Magneto (''from the previous film'') instead of having yet another film where one of the main antagonists is yet another mutant.
** Points of contention tend to include Mystique's death when fans had gotten pretty attached to her in previous films, Jean being uncontrollably possessed by the Phoenix and destroying everything (''and everyone'') in her path as a result to drive the plot forward, Xavier being blamed harshly by the others for Jean's actions he had no control over and the mutant situations as a whole, and the government being given an excuse once again to use lethal force against mutants even though this was solved several times in previous films. It doesn't help that, timeline technicalities aside, in the future timeline Mystique's death would have made no sense as she is present in X-Men films of a later chronology. Also see Main/EightDeadlyWords below.
* EightDeadlyWords: The disastrous box office results and poor reviews (from both critics ''and'' fans) tells a lot about what most of the audience thought of the film. Various {{Out Of Character Moment}}s throughout the storyline didn't help either; even the biggest fans of Raven noted how it was hard to mourn for her given [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic the way she acted]] for most of this film. For many fans, the performances of Creator/JamesMcAvoy and Creator/MichaelFassbender are the only appealing characterisations in this film (See Main/TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter below).

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: A huge part of the general negative consensus of the film stems from the sheer amount of darkness that makes the plot hard to care about, when the plot could have focused on new concepts such as Quiksilver's relation to Magneto (''from the previous film'').
** Points of contention tend to include Mystique's death when fans had gotten pretty attached to her in previous films, Jean being uncontrollably possessed by the Phoenix and destroying everything (''and everyone'') in her path as a result to drive the plot forward, Xavier being blamed harshly by the others for Jean's actions he had no control over and the mutant situations as a whole, and the government being given an excuse once again to use lethal force against mutants even though this was solved several times in previous films. It doesn't help that, timeline technicalities aside, in the future timeline Mystique's death would have made no sense as she is present in X-Men films of a later chronology. Also see Main/EightDeadlyWords below.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Aside from what many fans consider poor execution and a plot hard to even believe, a huge part of the general negative consensus of the film stems from the sheer amount of darkness that makes the plot hard to care about, when the plot could have focused on new concepts such as Quiksilver's relation to Magneto (''from the previous film'').
** Points of contention tend to include Mystique's death when fans had gotten pretty attached to her in previous films, Jean being uncontrollably possessed by the Phoenix and destroying everything (''and everyone'') in her path as a result to drive the plot forward, Xavier being blamed harshly by the others for Jean's actions he had no control over and the mutant situations as a whole, and the government being given an excuse once again to use lethal force against mutants even though this was solved several times in previous films. It doesn't help that, timeline technicalities aside, in the future timeline Mystique's death would have made no sense as she is present in X-Men films of a later chronology. Also see Main/EightDeadlyWords below.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Aside from what many fans consider poor execution and a plot hard to even believe, a huge part of the general negative consensus of the film stems from the sheer amount of darkness that makes the plot hard to care about, when the plot could have focused on new concepts such as Quiksilver's relation to Magneto (''from the previous film'').
** Points of contention tend to include Mystique's death when fans had gotten pretty attached to her in previous films, Jean being uncontrollably possessed by the Phoenix and destroying everything (''and everyone'') in her path as a result to drive the plot forward, Xavier being blamed harshly by the others for Jean's actions he had no control over and the mutant situations as a whole, and the government being given an excuse once again to use lethal force against mutants even though this was solved several times in previous films. It doesn't help that, technical things aside, in the future timeline Mystique's death would have made no sense as she is present in X-Men films of a later chronology. Also see Main/EightDeadlyWords below.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Aside from what many fans consider poor execution and a plot hard to even believe, a huge part of the general negative consensus of the film stems from the sheer amount of darkness that makes the plot hard to care about, when the plot could have focused on new concepts such as Quiksilver's relation to Magneto (''from the previous film''). Points of contention tend to include Mystique's death when fans had gotten pretty attached to her in previous films, Jean being uncontrollably possessed by the Phoenix and destroying everything (''and everyone'') in her path as a result to drive the plot forward, Xavier being blamed harshly by the others for Jean's actions he had no control over and the mutant situations as a whole, and the government being given an excuse once again to use lethal force against mutants even though this was solved several times in previous films. It doesn't help that, technical things aside, in the future timeline Mystique's death would have made no sense as she is present in X-Men films of a later chronology. Also see Main/EightDeadlyWords below.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Aside from what many fans consider poor execution and a plot hard to even believe, a huge part of the general negative consensus of the film stems from the sheer amount of darkness that makes the plot hard to care about. Points of contention tend to include Mystique's death when fans had gotten pretty attached to her in previous films, Jean being uncontrollably possessed by the Phoenix and destroying everything (''and everyone'') in her path as a result to drive the plot forward, Xavier being blamed harshly by the others, and the government being given an excuse once again to use lethal force against mutants even though this was solved several times in previous films. It doesn't help that, technical things aside, in the future timeline Mystique's death would have made no sense as she is present in X-Men films of a later chronology. Also see Main/EightDeadlyWords below.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: See Main/EightDeadlyWords below.
* EightDeadlyWords: The disastrous box office results and poor reviews (from both critics ''and'' fans) tells a lot about what most of the audience thought of the film. Various {{Out Of Character Moment}}s throughout the storyline didn't help either; even the biggest fans of Raven noted how it was hard to mourn for her given [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic the way she acted]] for most of this film.

* CompleteMonster: [[ManipulativeBastard Vuk]] is the leader of the [[Characters/XMenFilmSeriesDBari D'Bari Empire]] and author of an insidious plot to control the Phoenix Force and rule the Earth after using the Phoenix Force to wipe out all life on Earth. Tracking the Phoenix Force to Earth, Vuk murders a woman and takes her appearance before killing the woman's husband by stopping his heart. Vuk subsequently finds and murders [[Characters/XMenFilmSeriesJeanGrey Jean Grey]]'s father John after interrogating him about Jean's whereabouts, noting that it's harder to understand someone while they're screaming. After managing to find Jean, Vuk [[TheCorruptor persuades her to try embracing her powers]] and to not bother with ideas of morality. When the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants confront Jean, Jean is overcome with remorse, and Vuk "volunteers" to take the Phoenix Force away from her, knowing full well that Jean will be killed. After the mutants are captured and she is prevented from completely absorbing the Phoenix Force, Vuk and her forces attack the train transporting them to take the Phoenix Force from Jean, killing dozens of soldiers. Utterly without empathy even towards her own people, Vuk was [[OutsideContextProblem unlike any threat the X-Men had faced before]].

** The climax of ''Apocalypse'' has Charles intentionally telling Jean to use her full power, heavily implying that she unleashed the Phoenix and that this film would explore the [[RealityEnsues dire consequences]] [[GodzillaThreshold of this decision]]. Instead, the film ignores this and reveals that Charles once again repressed Jean's power as he did in the original timeline, while the Phoenix is an outside force completely unrelated to what Jean did in ''Apocalypse''.

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: You take a long hard look at the last shot of the final trailer where the Phoenix Force is shown along with the Earth and tell us it doesn't look beautiful.

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Regardless of the movie's writing, you can't deny that the CGI in every scene is amazing. Special mention would have to go to Cerebro, where entering one person's mind creates a swirly, ink-like environment around the user. It's meant to simulate the work of synapses in a person's brain, and it's beautiful to watch.