Fox’s often venerated (and occasionally lampooned) X-Men quasi-continuity goes out with a whimper with the young-adult-led nonstarter that is The New Mutants. The 20-year old franchise has seen watermarks high and low, witness to its share of failed entires (The Last Stand, Origins: Wolverine and Apocalypse to name a few offenders) balanced out by a handful of genre-defining classics (X2, First Class, Logan). At the end of the era comes not a new low so much as a defeated shrug, as there has never been an entry that felt more identity-drained and inert than Josh Boone’s final death knell. But that’s not necessarily the sole fault of the writer-director.  Read More