According to the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the latest X-Men movie “Dark Phoenix” is a bad film with a rating of only 22%. Dark Phoenix is an average action movie, not a bad one and unfortunately because it is only average, the odds are that it might reduce the chances that X-Men will continue as a movie franchise. The problem with this movie is that we have seen all of this before, there is nothing really new here. The special effects are good not great and the story is boring in too many areas to make it something unforgettable, that for any super-hero movie in recent years is a rare event anyway.

Dark Phoenix, like all the X-Men movies has many known actors, including James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Sophie Turner and Jessica Chastain. Unfortunately for all movies like this, throwing a large number of famous people at an average or bad script and you still have an average or bad script. It will always be story first, then script, then many re-writes. Nothing is easy when producing a great movie.

I give Dark Phoenix about a 50% rating and only a very marginal recommendation for the biggest X-Men fans.

As a professional blogger, sometimes due to high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, I see movies that unfortunately are appreciated by some critics but are so boring that I have to leave early. “All is True”, starring Kenneth Branagh is one of those movies. This film is about the life of William Shakespeare after he stopped writing plays and after the death due to a plague of his only son. Its also about one of his neglected daughters and several other sub stories, that are unfortunately extremely boring.

The IMDB ratings for this movie at 5.8 are more accurate than the 78% on Rotten Tomatoes and I do not recommend this movie that seemed like it would never end.

One thing that the new movie “Ma” is better at than most violent slasher movies is through a series of flashbacks, the screenwriter shows “why” Sue Ann, played by Oscar Winner Octavia Spenser becomes an insane vengeful murderer. Most movies like this for the most part, just introduce some insane character and then they go on a killing spree. All people are or become who they are through circumstances that other people around them either choose to understand or choose to ignore. The reason why Sue Ann is insane, is because of a prank that caused her great humiliation that even some 30 years later, still haunts and agonizes her. One line in this film makes it clear that sometimes, time does not always heal all wounds.

The majority of this movie involve Sue Ann or “Ma” befriending the children of the teenagers she knew while in high school, by buying them alcohol and using her basement as a nightclub for local teenagers. What follows is some familiar and some unusual scenes that culminate in something we have all seen before in so many other similar films. However, this movie is still interesting and different enough to recommend.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Ma is an anemic 58% but I will give it a solid 70% mainly because of the acting talent of Octavia Spenser, who showed some courage taking this unlikely role.