"Dark Phoenix" hits a lot of similar notes from "Last Stand", even going so far as behind the scenes with a new director picking up from Bryan Singer's set-up for the Phoenix from the previous movie. But story-wise, we see Jean's power going through a major increase after a traumatic event, the Professor revealing he put up psychic barriers in Jean's mind, Jean causing a major death that makes her teammates question whether she's redeemable, other villains hoping to use her power for their own use, and a sense of peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants. So yeah, it's basically "Last Stand" again, but it does take some of these plot-points and makes them work a little better.
What helps most of all is that we are totally focused on the Dark Phoenix. The main plot of "Last Stand" was based on the "Gifted" storyline and the mutant cure, and it felt like the Phoenix plot was shoehorned in because they were wrapping up the trilogy and needed to finish what Singer set up.
Jean's turn to evil shows much more internal conflict as she struggles with her increased powers and the revelations of her past. Compare that to X3 where she basically went full villain with barely any self-resistance and hardly did anything to help Magneto after joining his side, that's a point to "Dark Phoenix."
The Professor messing with Jean's head is still problematic in my eyes, and the situation is even worse compared to X3 depending on your viewpoint. But what helps make it better in "Dark Phoenix" is that Charles is actually more repentant of his actions. Charles in X3 couldn't admit he did anything wrong, even stoking the fire inside Jean which lead to her blowing him up. Here, Charles is more subdued and trying to reach Jean's heart rather than her head.
I still think it was a mistake to spoil Mystique's death in the trailer, but damn it if they still made it emotional. This is thanks in part to the acting of Nicholas Hoult's Beast and Michael Fassbender's Magneto and their reactions to her death. Thinking back to when I first saw "Last Stand", my response to both Cyclops' and Charles' deaths were more shock that they actually did it. But another part of why I feel Mystique's death was handled better is because I've found myself more invested in the younger versions of these characters since "First Class" compared to the original trilogy. As much as I love the characters there, they were always overshadowed by Wolverine and there was real growth to follow with the "First Class" versions.
There are a lot of good action pieces in the movie, though my favorite is probably the train scene. Apparently they had to rework the climax due to the original script's similarities to Captain Marvel's, but I can see they tried to make the best of it, as it had a lot of cool moments with characters doing things we hadn't seen them do before, or at least in a different way.
Where the film lacks is quite a bit though.
The movie jumps another decade like the other "First Class" movies, but unlike those movies, they don't take full advantage of being set in the 90's, something "Captain Marvel" succeeded at. No fashion, no music, and they don't even have George H.W. Bush as president.
When it comes to characters, unless you're Charles, Jean, Beast, Cyclops, Magneto, or Mystique, you're pretty much there for the sake of being there. Even Magneto's two new henchmen are so underdeveloped and forgettable that I had to look up who they were on Wikipedia; hell, I thought Selene was Psylocke at first. It's nothing new to have characters in an X-Men movie not have much beyond the surface, but characters like Bishop or Blink at least had cool powers and unique looks.
As for the rest of the X-Men, Storm has some good action moments but nothing added to her character aside from giving Cyclops essentially the same speech she gave Wolverine in "X3". Also, I may not know Storm's full capabilities, but I'm pretty sure she can't just make ice cubes. She controls the weather; she's not Iceman.
There seemed to be some intended character development for Nightcrawler, but I think it was cut, because a big character change for him comes out of nowhere when he becomes bloodthirsty and starts killing the D'Bari aliens coming after Jean left and right. I know they're aliens, but I've always kind of seen Kurt as one of the most innocent X-Men characters, who only fought when he needed to. Add that into conjunction with his religious nature and it's what helps add contrast to his demonic appearance; it's basically "don't judge a book by its cover". Between his appearances in "X2" and "Apocalypse", Kurt never showed such violent nature of his own accord. Hell, even his absence in "Last Stand" was explained in a technically non-canon video game set between movies, where he chose to leave the X-Men because of their violent lifestyle.
Quicksilver, who arguably had the best moments in "Days of Future Past" and "Apocalypse", is barely in this one. He almost has one of his signature moments, but there's no accompanying song, and it's cut short as Jean violently knocks him aside, which results in him being injured for the rest of movie. There also isn't any development between him and his father Magneto, with no character interaction or even mention of one by the other.
"Dark Phoenix" is ultimately the superior adaptation of the story compared to "Last Stand", thanks to better focus and the performances of certain characters, but not by that much. It's definitely not as bad as the critics are making it out to be, as I sense they were trying to do better this time around. I think their response is due in part to people growing weary of the franchise and lack of investment knowing it's about to be restarted anyway.
Before the Disney buyout of Fox, this film was supposed to kick off the next saga of X-Men movies as there are plot points set up that probably would have been explored in sequels, but it doesn't matter now. As a result, it doesn't really serve as a proper conclusion to the franchise as one would hope or expect. If you've been following the franchise and want to see the final entry, just know it doesn't really end with a bang or a whimper. It just ends.
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