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.

The concept of a super-powered horror-tinted chamber piece is inherently rich with potential, part of what led to the healthy amount of anticipation the film earned upon its announcement. That anticipation only grew with the regular reshuffling of its release date into the future. Some doubted the film might ever see the light of day. From the start of production in July of 2017 to now, The New Mutants underwent a series of fits and starts, with reshoots, corporate upheaval and rumors circling the release since its inception. So it seems only proper that the film is unceremoniously dumped in the middle of a pandemic. At least it proves that the movie does indeed exist. As to whether it ultimately should or not is another question.

On the one hand, New Mutants feels like a Disney write-off, a tax deduction on celluloid. But releasing Boone’s would-be-maybe franchise starter without any scheduling connection to the now singular Marvel universe was probably a good call. Sadly, between the X-Men’s already being a dead franchise and the constant rejigging of the movie earning it a frequent keep on the movie news site’s drama sector, New Mutants felt doomed to fail and the final film feels the weight of that inevitability.

With only six characters occupying the entirety of the film and very few extras to speak of, The New Mutants feels contained but also very small. When Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt), a Native American with undisclosed powers who just witnessed the destruction of her entire family and peoples, is sent to a facility that “manages” young mutants, she discovers herself locked in with other teens with equally troubled pasts. There’s Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), a sword-wielding murder-magician with a pissy attitude; the troubled Kentucky boy Sam (Charlie Heaton) who has the powers of a F-16 but very little control; Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga), a billionaire heir with a fiery personality and even more fiery outbursts; and Rahne (Maisie Williams), a tender-hearted she-wolf. Each have trauma to overcome and the movie goes through the motions to bring the group together and have them accept themselves and each other in the face of their greatest fears quite literally coming back to haunt them.

The cast is solid enough, particularly for a coming-of-age superhero flick. Taylor-Joy is the clear standout of the cast while the newcomer Hunt doesn’t leave nearly as much of an impression as she could have. As an ensemble, the group cannot overcome the many shortcomings of Boone and co-writer Knate Lee’s script, which scratches the surface of the psychological torment of these characters but cheats rushing to a resolution. Between introducing us to five new mutants, trying to create a launching pad for a new network of franchisable characters, and juggling a tone that waffles between romantic coming-of-age story and haunted house horror film, the film feels the weight of the whole kitchen sink. Rather than truly delivering on the promise of a superhero horror movie, New Mutants is content to smuggle some jump scares and some Silent Hill-esque nightmare characters and call it a day. The result reeks of studio interference, pulling back from a real commitment to genre, leaving New Mutants feeling flat and untextured rather than an original foray into new territory.

There’s a suggestion of a larger world of mutants and X-Men and parent corporations but no actual rubbing up against anything beyond the scope of this picture. By positioning New Mutants as a start to a larger story, the whole things feels unfinished and ultimately unnecessary. Especially so in light of the fact that this series was already doomed to be a one-and-done years before anyone actually saw it. The first chapter in a book that’s already been burned. That Alice Braga’s suspicious Dr. Reyes often refers to a larger network of superiors gives weight to the claims that New Mutants feels like a Frankenstein monster, recut, repurposed, added to, and subtracted from, until it was just kind of a lifeless hunk of movie, shambling its way to the dumping ground. At the end of the day, the behind-the-scenes trials and tribulations of The New Mutants remain more interesting than the 90-odd minutes of movie. And like so many flicks of this nature, that flit between green lights and studio stoppage and spent years in limbo, perhaps death might have been the ultimate courtesy.

CONCLUSION: ‘The New Mutants’ is a classic case of wasted potential, Josh Boone’s vision of a darker horror-genre superhero movie not fulfilled so much as it is merely suggested. The cast and special effects are serviceable (if muddy at times) but the whole thing feels small and ultimately pointless rather than just self-contained. RIP X-Men.