As an emotionally vacant piece of cinematic excrement, these mutants didn't deserve such an unbelievably disastrous fate. To sum it up bluntly, this is the worst of the entire chronology. Never would one imagine an X-Men offshoot that makes Brett Ratner's The Last Stand look like glorious cinematic fruit. Well, The New Mutants takes the prize. This short winded ninety minute exercise in creative futility marks a defined conclusion for a series of films that's played so fast and loose with its characters and its timelines that we all began to hope for sudden death. And here it is. Bury it deep.
With the Marvel properties changing hands over to Disney, we hold no hope of anything happening soon. But Josh Boone's work on this film is the absolute gutter mark for super hero movies and does nothing to establish these teenage mutants as the culturally expansive representations that were needed. There is something special about the five teens that should have been used to teach a lesson about diversity, sexuality, and all other ends of the spectrum. Instead, everything that makes us connect to them in the comics is left on the cutting room floor. Wasting hyper talents like Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Heaton is a sin in and of itself. But floundering their dynamic skill set in a movie that's vacant of a script is the ultimate insult to long loving fans of this franchise.
After years of Fox doing their absolute best to destroy the continuity of one of the most famed comic book brands and its legacy, this latest feature takes one final blow towards destroying the entire franchise and characters that fans know and love. This 2020 release that's been sitting on the shelf for longer than anyone wants to admit, comes along and deals a massive theatrical blunder that truly suits the final moments of a studio that was always at odds with this branded intellectual property. The New Mutants is a non-movie. There is nothing to latch onto. There is no script and no character development.
Viewing this through a fresh set of eyes after nearly 8 months of no public movies, it really becomes so apparent that there never was a vision this film. From delays and studio toiling to a hampered marketing campaign and the idea that this would be our generation's Dream Warriors serves up an opened handed slap in the face to theater goers, movie fans, critics, comic readers, and everyone else in between. If you're one of us that had a hard time with Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix, you're in for a fresh dose of failure with The New Mutants. This is not just a bad movie. It's a sad symptom of a Hollywood system that just hasn't been listening to the people that have loved these characters the longest.
-CG
