Image Source/Marvel/Fox/TSG/The Donner's Company
I am an X-Men fan, and has been watching the cartoon series back in the 1990s. By early 2000s, the first live action X-Men movie was released. Of course, I watched the film, as well as the subsequent ones. To be honest, the characters who has the attention from the cartoon series is quite different from the movies. I am not really into Wolverine being the lead character, but I learned to embrace how the X-Men movies were played out.
The X-Men movie I was disappointed at was the X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I even saw the unedited and leaked version. X-Men: The Last Stand is somewhat disappointing too. The Wolverine is better than the first Wolverine movie though.
The Reboot
The reboot is a good idea as it takes you to the earlier lives of the X-Men, and how they were formed. The first movie was X-Men: First Class, and it took us to the early life of Magneto, Charles Xavier, Mystique, and Beast with Kevin Bacon as the villain character Sebastian Shaw.
The movie was highly acclaimed by critics, and earned somewhat fine. Its sequel was X-Men: Days of Future Past, which Wolverine time traveled to the past from future. The movie was critically loved, and became the highest grossing X-Men film with "X-Men" on its name. Of course, we all know Deadpool is part of the franchise, and its two films are the highest grossing among the franchise.
The Poor Reception on X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Apocalypse followed X-Men: Days of Future Past, which reviews are mixed. I actually loved the story, though there are some scenes that weren't really effective. I actually find it better than Justice League movie. Watching Steppenwolf of Justice League and Thanos of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame reminded me of En Sabah Nur / Apocalypse.
My Thoughts on Dark Phoenix
Long before the release of the film, there are comparison between Dark Phoenix and MCU's Captain Marvel considering the characters are women and has pyro powers. I am even thinking about that, though I didn't watch Captain Marvel until several months after its release.
Due to early reviews, I decided not to watch Dark Phoenix. Besides, I still have hangover from watching Avengers: Endgame, which was released weeks before Phoenix, and still doing well at the box office at that time. But didn't kill my interest to watch the film.
I always read news about movies, and when Dark Phoenix opened in theaters, there are lots of negative reviews, and I even felt bad for the actors and the production who worked very hard to finish the movie. But general reviews are negative so I think it is really a bad film.
I didn't watch the movie until it was aired in a vabke channel recently. If you ask me, the movie isn't that bad story-wise, and I can say it is good. I even re-watched the movie, and I don't agree with what the critics are saying regarding the film.
The reason I see why reviews are negative is it didn't turn out how they expected it to be. It has dark undertone with its mental illness theme. But it wasn't executed that bad, and for people who has mental illness can relate to the movie. As I have some anxiety, I can feel the struggle of Jean Grey.
Another thing I noticed about some critics is they deemed Dark Phoenix as a bad film even before it was released. How can you have a positive view on something when you are close-minded with a mindset that it's bad? There you can see their intentions, which is to spread negativity on the film.
Of course, there are some people who doesn't like the film, and I saw some good reviews from those who watched it. Everything I said here are my opinions, and not for the general viewers. I still believe that whether a movie is a good or bad is a subjective matter. Everyone has perception on what they saw, but we are sometimes influenced by word of mouth.