'Dark Phoenix' Receives Lowest Rotten Tomatoes Score in 'X-Men' History

After lengthy delays, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, the conclusion of Fox’s X-Men franchise, is finally releasing this week--and today, the review embargo on the film was lifted. Despite the high anticipation for the film, reviews have not treated it kindly thus far, earning the dubious achievement of the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score in the entire franchise--a mere 21%, out of 90 reviews, at the time of this article’s writing.

As ComicBook.com notes, this score is considerably lower than the next worst rated films in the franchise, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: Apocalypse, and X-Men: The Last Stand. These films earned scores of 37%, 47%, and 58%, respectively. This status, per ComicBook.com, is particularly striking, as Origins: Wolverine is often regarded as one of the worst superhero films of all time.

The writer and director of Dark Phoenix, Simon Kinberg, previously wrote The Last Stand under director Brett Ratner, as well as the later, more positively reviewed X-Men: Days of Future Past under Brian Singer, but this experience appears not to have helped the film’s critical reception.

This score is marginally better than the score earlier today, which, according to ComicBook.com, was 17% out of 52--but the score will likely not go much higher, since its positive rating increased only 4% with almost twice as many reviews.

We’re disappointed to hear that the film isn’t being particularly well-received--but we’ll reserve our judgement until we see the film when it hits theaters on June 7, just in case late reviews are more positive.