‘The New Mutants’ Receives Mixed Reviews Despite Re-Shoots & Extra Time

To say that The New Mutants, the final movie in the X-Men film series has gone through production troubles would be an understatement. After originally wrapping up production in 2018, the director of the film Josh Boone wanted to go through reshoots after a somewhat positive test screening with audiences. However, many of the actors in the movie were too busy to do the reshoots, resulting in a massive delay. Things became even more complicated for the film when The Walt Disney Company bought 20th Century Fox and canceled all of the other spinoffs that were in development for the X-Men film series. Disney delayed the film even further during this acquisition. The film was delayed one last time after the COVID-19 pandemic caused nearly all movie theaters around the world to close and film productions to cease. It was at this point that fans wondered if the movie would ever even be released. However, after being delayed for two years, The New Mutants was finally released on August 28. Despite all the trouble that The New Mutants went through behind the scenes, the film received mixed to negative reviews.

The movie received criticism for its inconsistent tone, slow pacing, whitewashing of certain characters and failure to stand out in the X-Men film series. Peter Debruge from Variety gave The New Mutants credit for managing to feel coherent at the end, but pointed out that the film does not really have an identity of its own stating, “Despite all the meddling and interference the film reportedly went through, The New Mutants feels pretty coherent in the end. What it doesn’t achieve is a memorable personality of its own.”

Even the co-creator of the New Mutants comic book series Bob McLeod did not like the film, annoyed that the characters were not portrayed properly with Henry Zaga’s character Roberto da Costa’s race being changed. McLeod also pointed out that his name was misspelled in the credits as “Bob MacLeod.”

It is unfortunate that after so many delays The New Mutants could not end the X-Men film series on a high note. However, X-Men fans can look forward to seeing these characters potentially appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe sometime in the future.