X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) - Trailer Reaction

After being delayed from it's November 2018 release and rumours circling of a straight-up cancellation, Fox has finally reaffirmed that X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be released on 14th February 2019, and have unveiled the very first trailer for the film. They've also confirmed that the US title will simply be Dark Phoenix, while the UK title will actually include the X-Men main title, which is...confusing. I mean, this is clearly an X-Men movie as opposed to a spin-off. What's wrong with including the X-Men label?

Regardless of Fox's strange title decision, and a whole ten months after Entertainment Weekly previewed it for its November 2018 release, the trailer is out and...it's a teaser. I don't think Fox have really made it clear that this is a teaser trailer, but that's essentially what it is. Lots of slow moody shots, vague ominous dialogue, no exciting reveals and very few visual effects shots.

Saying that though, didn't this movie finish shooting about a year ago now? They've had around a year of post-production time, and they don't have any exciting visual effects shots to show-off? Have Fox not seen the online rumours calling this film a "complete train-wreck"? Black Panther released it's teaser trailer the June before the film's February release, and that was packed with visual effects shots. The only trailers I can think of for big blockbuster films like this to not show-off the visual effects sequences are ones released about a year in advance of the film. Dark Phoenix comes out on Valentine's Day. In less than five months. So why have Fox revealed absolutely nothing interesting?

From a marketing perspective, Dark Phoenix is already failing, and I don't say that lightly. The poster is pretty vague and mediocre, they can't decide on whether or not to include X-Men in the title, the rumours regarding the film's quality are horrendous, Disney have already started plans for a full-on reboot series and the first-look teaser trailer reveals absolutely nothing that will excite a dwindling audience. While we're here, let's also remember the disappointing box office results for X-Men: Apocalypse. Undoubtedly the film will make several hundred million dollars, but if they really have spent hundreds of millions on this film as it is, it seems unlikely that Fox will actually profit from the film. It's almost as though they're preparing for a financial loss.

As for the trailer itself, it certainly isn't terrible, but it's certainly too little too late. Ideally Fox should have used San Diego Comic Con to market Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants - and probably could've gotten away with using this exact trailer as well. While on the one hand the X-Men finally have proper superhero costumes, they look a bit rubbish. Why aren't they using the suits from the end of Apocalypse? There are some interesting character beats alluded to, but nothing that we haven't seen before. Jean's turning evil - seen it. Magneto's good but will probably turn bad again - seen it. Mystique questioning Xavier's actions - seen it. The most interesting aspect will probably be Cyclops' character arc, considering he barely appeared in the previous Jean Grey-turns-evil film, X-Men: The Last Stand. I really liked Tye Sheridan's performance in Apocalypse, and with his awesome new goggles, Cyclops looks the best out of all the X-Men. The brief conflict we saw between Beast and Professor X also shows promise, but then again, I feel like I'm clutching at straws here.

As someone who's followed the X-Men movies for years now, I'm just disappointed. Sure, I'll probably end up seeing X-Men: Dark Phoenix either at the cinema or on DVD, but I can't say that I'm excited. Hopefully the film will surprise us all.