The New Mutants review

THE NEW MUTANTS: 

X-MEN THEMED HORROR MOVIE HAS AN INTERESTING PREMISE, BUT SADLY FAILS TO LIVE UP TO IT! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** out of 4

20^TH CENTURY STUDIOS AND MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT

Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, Blu Hunt, Maisie Williams, and Anya Taylor-Joy in The New Mutants

 

            The X-Men mutants show off their dark side in The New Mutants, the final installment of Fox’s X-Men franchise based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name, and the first to be released under the 20^th Century Studios label after Fox was acquired by Disney. The film is directed by Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) and had quite an interesting production history to say the least. 

            Originally slated for an April 2018 release, the film was constantly delayed because of reshoots to make the movie scarier, avoiding competition with other X-Men movies like Deadpool 2 and Dark Phoenix, and Disney buying out 20^th Century Fox to name a few. Yeah, it was delayed so much to the point where it almost became hilarious, kind of like the Thief and the Cobbler of comic book movies. 

After one more delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The New Mutants finally saw the light of day with a theatrical release as promised. So, now that it’s been released, how does it hold up? Well, I’m sad to say that just like Dark Phoenix, the X-Men franchise has now officially ended on a whimper and because this is the final movie in this series before the characters are rebooted for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there is no chance of recovery from this for the Fox X-Men franchise. 

Unlike the previous attempt at ending the X-Men series with last year’s Dark Phoenix where it was a dull, desperate, and passionless attempt at retconning the Phoenix plotline previously adapted in X-Men 3: The Last Stand, The New Mutants at least has an interesting concept that blends superhero and horror movie elements together revolving around a group of mutants trapped in a mysterious hospital that hides a dark secret. This isn’t a lazy, half-hearted retreat of what the previous X-Men movies already did (Which was the case for Dark Phoenix), despite being very unfamiliar with the New Mutants comics, this is a very original and fascinating sounding premise that could have taken the X-Men franchise to new heights…if done correctly. 

Unfortunately, it all boils down to execution and New Mutants certainly ain’t no Logan (Which was a PERFECTLY FINE ending to the franchise, by the way!), this is a sad example of a movie with a brilliant premise getting butchered in the cutting room floor and botched by an inconsistent tone, wasted potential, studio interferences, and the film being cut down to everyone’s favorite rating in cinema, PG-13 (Yep, it’s like Venom all over again!). 

The film follows a group of young mutants consisting of Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams-Game of Thrones, The Falling, Early Man), Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy-The Witch, Split/Glass, Emma (2020)), Samuel “Sam” Guthrie (Charlie Heaton-Stranger Things, As You Are, The Souvenir: Part II), and Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga-Teen Wolf, Trinkets, The Stand) being held in an isolated hospital for psychiatric monitoring by Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga-City of God, I Am Legend, Predators) who believes they are a danger to both themselves and society in general. When newcomer Dani (Blu Hunt-The Originals, Another Life) joins the other patients in the facility strange occurrences begin to take place that literally transform the entire hospital into a living nightmare. 

The patients are soon plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks from their dark pasts and their new mutant abilities and friendship will be put to the ultimate test as they fight to try and make it out alive. 

The film also stars Adam Beach (Smoke Signals, Flags of Our Fathers, Suicide Squad) as William Lonestar, Happy Anderson (The Knick, Mindhunter, Bird Box) as Reverend Craig, and Marilyn Manson himself as the voice of the Smile Men. 

Overall, I’m glad that The New Mutants was finally released after all the trouble it went through to get to the theater and to its credit it’s not the worst of the X-Men movies (I still consider Dark Phoenix to be the absolute worst), but this just feels like a movie with an amazing concept ruined in the editing department because it feels like a lot of key scenes are missing from the final film and little did I know, that was kind of the case. Remember the scene in the trailer with the faces coming out of the wall, Freddy Krueger style? Guess what, not in the movie! The scene that shows what happened in Illyana’s backstory where she killed 18 men? Not in the movie (She does mention it, but we never see it happen)! 

I swear, this film has the taint of Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four movie and while it’s nowhere near as big a train-wreck as that movie it feels like similar procedures were taken in the editing. Reducing this very adult, disturbing, and unique vision down to something it shouldn’t be, a generic, barebones, and at times dull horror/superhero movie hybrid that waters the violence and terror down to a PG-13 to get those kiddies into the movie theater seats, it tries so hard to appeal to a wide audience that it appeals to no one, I really hope a director’s cut of this movie exists somewhere. 

I’ll give the actors a lot of credit for trying their best to work with the material given to them and I can acknowledge that the acting is good for the most part. However, the characters and character development (or lack thereof) is what’s standing in the way. 

I’m not saying the X-Men characters are the most deep and complex characters in comic books and superhero movies, but they at least had unique personalities, a lot of charisma, and worked off of each other very well. Cannot say the same for these mutants because these ones are stock horror movie characters, we’ve seen a million times before and not in an ironic or fun way. 

You know the ones, we got the new kid, the nice girl, the nice boy, the mean girl, and the mean boy and while the film tries to give them all backstories and attempts to get the audience attached to them, their efforts fail to make up for the bland, charisma-free, New Mutants. Yeah, they may be mutants, but they got a long way to go if they want to live up to the original X-Men team. Hell, they’re barely X-Force material! 

The New Mutants is a slight improvement over Dark Phoenix and clocks in at a breezy 94 minutes, so it doesn’t quite feel like a huge waste of time, and there are some neat ideas explored. But for a movie with a very fascinating and potential-filled concept, this X-Men themed horror movie falls flat and I can only recommend it to those who are extremely curious.