Now, full disclosure, I bought the movie anyway. Just as the notorious X-Men 3 sits on my shelves of movies, this one will as well ... once I get around to watching it. I certainly fall into the obsessive collector category when it comes to completing movie franchises (thus I also have a copy of Batman V Superman).
Why am I scared of this movie? Is it the critical reviews? No. There are plenty of poorly reviewed movies that I actually quite enjoy. Is it because of negative comments about the movie from friends and family? No. Actually, I haven't heard anything from any of them about this film ... which I suppose isn't a good sign either. What is it, then? It's the writer.
For those who do not know, the Dark Phoenix saga is easily one of the best stories in the X-Men comics. It balances tragedy and loss with hope and love. The repercussions of the events in the comics have ripples that would affect all X-Men stories after it. Even the 90s X-Men cartoon did an amazing job capturing the story and its nuances.
It was for this reason that the ending of X-Men 2 had so many fans, such as myself, waiting in agony for X-Men 3 to come out and finally put the amazing story on the big screen. Except it didn't. X-Men 3 not only failed in every aspect of the Dark Phoenix story, it was so terrible that it almost killed the entire franchise. It was so very bad that a later movie (Days of Future Past) would erase its events from the movie series timeline.
So why? Why for all that is holy? Why would Fox have the SAME WRITER pen the screenplay for this do-over? Worse, they gave him full directorial control as well. Who, exactly, is Simon Kinberg screwing (aside from X-Men fans) to get to ruin such a great storyline not once, but twice? [Sorry. I may have gotten a bit personal there. I'm certain he's a nice guy, and I like the films he produces (The Martian, Logan, Deadpool), but PLEASE keep him away from the keyboard.]
I almost want to watch it just to see how bad it is, but I'm too scared (and scarred) to do so just yet.