The New Mutants – Film Review

This is the first film since the pandemic began that I went back to the theater to see. I have been anticipating seeing this film for years. I thought that this film would have been pushed to PVOD due to too many release changes, but the contractual obligations made that too difficult. Regardless — I saw this film at the IMAX theater locally here and it was great on the big screen. My thoughts and opinions may be skewed with renewed experience.

For the film itself, I thought that it was not only watchable but I pleasantly enjoyed it. I didn’t feel it had a large amount of depth compared to other X-Men movies, but I wasn’t expecting much after the various delays. The casting (set aside from the white-washing controversy) has was well done. I thought the actors did as much as they could with the material given. The visual effects on their powers and the 3rd act finale were particularly impressive to see on the big screen.

There’s a Native American proverb that says: Inside every person there are two bears, forever locked in combat for your soul. One bear is all things good: compassion, love, trust. The other is all things evil: fear, shame and self-destruction..

The negatives for the film fault mostly with the script. It feels like there isn’t much filmed beyond an initial run-through of the film. If they had done re-shoots it would have had a stronger punch. I would have liked to have seen the ties that they teased in the film incorporated more into the film than being flashes in passing. The film did feel more completed than “Fantastic Four (2015” and “X-Men: Dark Phoenix”, where you can tell that this fil has been dramatically altered from its initial story.

I wouldn’t ask anyone to risk their lives to go to the theater to see this but I would definitely recommend watching at home when it becomes available for rent or on HBO Max next spring. If you’re a completionist like myself to see the final chapter in Fox’s 20 year long, 13-film hit-or-miss saga of X-Men films, its definitely a better note to end on than “X-Men: Dark Phoenix.”

7/10