Slowly, in fits and starts, Fox’s “X-Men” became the franchise nobody wanted — and the latest, and possibly last, chapter in the saga, “Dark Phoenix,” is the sad, misshapen end product.
It’s 1992, and this group of mutants seem scarcely to have aged since their debut in the rebooted “X-Men: First Class” (2011), which was set during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The bald, mind-reading Prof. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) still runs his school for mutants, while also getting on the government’s good side by sending his adult mutants out on life-saving missions.
The blue-skinned shape-shiftier Raven, aka Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), is in charge of the mission squad, and she warns Prof.