Iman Vellani refuses to watch this Marvel movie

Jasmine Valentine
Iman Vellani on the poster for The Marvels

Marvel star Iman Vellani is truly the cat that got the cream with her MCU role as Kamala Khan – but it turns out that there’s one Marvel movie she just can’t watch.

Just like Ms. Marvel herself, Vellani is a Marvel superfan who went from watching the MCU to starring in it. This means she seriously knows her stuff – especially about the comics.

Nowhere do these two traits come together more than in The Marvels, Vellani’s most recent MCU appearance. In our four-star review, we described the film as “Goofy, fun, and full of girl power, The Marvels is an out-and-out blast.”

While Kamala nerds out over Carol Danvers onscreen, Vellani continues to flex her Marvel muscles offscreen – except for watching one particular movie.

Marvel star Iman Vellani refuses to watch Dark Phoenix

In a recent interview with New Rockstars, Marvel Star Iman Vellani revealed that she refuses to watch Dark Phoenix.

During the interview, Vellani asked if she had any theories on which X-Men universe Teyonah Parris’ character Monica Rambeau ended up in during the post-credits scene.

Her response? “Any X-Men universe is fine – that’s not true! I still refuse to watch Dark Phoenix.”

Though it might seem like a controversial opinion to a non-Marvel fan, the figures don’t lie. As of writing, X-Men: Dark Phoenix has a 22% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics dubbing it one of the worst comic book movies of the 21st century.

“The spectacle is entertaining, up to a point, but even the digital wizardry wears thin, and Dark Phoenix turns into a standard-brand miasma of explosions, collisions, and swirling force fields,” Joe Morgenstern from The Wall Street Journal pointed out at the time.

However, the movie has a better audience score of 64%. In 2019, it grossed $250 million at the US box office.

“Idk why everyone is butt hurt in the comments, she’s right about Dark Phoenix; it was worse than Last Stand,” one fan posted on X/Twitter in response to the interview clip.

“Ms Marvel will not win an Emmy but at least it shows that the actors wanted to do their job and the production team behind it made an effort, Dark Phoenix was the worst way to close the new X-Men universe, not even Last Stand was that bad,” another weighed in.

“They were flexing on us with that CGI,” Vellani added about X-Men cameo of Beast during the interview.

The Marvels is in theaters now. Catch up with our coverage below:

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