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The New Mutants

Following a group of 5 fledgling mutants shortly after their powers manifest in tragic ways, The New Mutants is the first in an anticipated trilogy that is likely to never occur.

Starting with the tragic destruction and loss of her village, Cheyenne Dani Moonstar wakes in a hospital where she’s told she will be released if she follows all the rules and once the nature of her powers is discovered.  She is befriended by 4 other mutants: Southern Boy Sam Guthrie who can fly erratically, Illyana Rasputin, who can teleport, has a soulsword, a pet dragon, and knowns magic (OP BABY), Rahne Sinclair a shapeshifter who can turn into a wolf and possesses the enhanced senses of one when in human form, and Roberto Da Costa a Brazilian billionare, who can turn his skin into fire when he gets aroused (or ok, when he wants to…).  Their captor/Nurse Ratchet like character is Cecilia Reyes, working for her “superiors” to catalogue the kids’ mutant powers.  Reyes’ own power is that she can create impenetrable forcefields such as the one that traps the kids inside the institution.

How much you enjoy the movie is going to be directly correlated with how well versed you are in Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz‘s source material, The New Mutants.  The characters in the film are one dimensional and mostly uninteresting (‘Berto my beautiful boy what have they done with you). Anya Taylor Joy, who I thought would steal the show as Illyana, doesn’t.  She has the attitude down but her character, like all the characters, are not given nearly enough time to develop.  That said, as someone who has recently read the entire first run of New Mutants as well as the transition to X-Force and beyond (humblebrag!), I loved it.  It’s easier to forgive the lack of character development when you can fill it in yourself.

The acting is overall good, with Blu Hunt being a standout as Dani.  Charlie Heaton as Sam is going to either drive you nuts or you’ll love him.  In the comics, Sam was a country bumpkin and Heaton’s Southern drawl is played up to the nth degree.  Similarly, Anya Taylor-Joy’s Russian accent is slightly distracting but she made a wise choice of going for a “barely there” one in the first place.  There are no “da comrade” lines thank glob.  The relationship that blossoms between Rahne (Game of Throne’s Arya, Maise Williams) and Dani feels natural is one of the only threads of character development found in the film so it’s a blessing that it works.

Graphically, (which is a way to rate films these days I swear), the movie is an unfortunate 5/10.  With so much time spent in development hell you wish that someone would have taken on touching up the CGI as a passion project.  In particular, the final fight scene felt lifeless and uninteresting.  It reminded me of the final act of Justice league where some giant CGI slugfest with no weight to it happens and you’re just supposed to care.  Do the kids come together as a team? Sure, but it’s basically a 1 by 1  showcase of each kid vs. the spirit bear.

I enjoyed the film.  I felt that the characterization of each of the New Mutants was consistent with the source material and if you’ve ever read any of the comics or hell, watched the 90s cartoon, you’ll see the “twist” coming (the trailer even had a huge tip-off if you were paying attention).  Given two more movies this film would have aged better than it inevitably will, as a footnote in the story of Fox’s X-Men franchise.  Many of the issues of character development and plot would be retroactively fixed if viewed as the start of a story instead of a standalone self contained film but alas, it’s not going to happen now.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column video_bg=”yes” video_bg_parallax=”content-moving” css_animation=”fadeInUpBig”][gpur_review_template template_id=”77″][/vc_column][/vc_row]