Movie Review: The New Mutants

As a comic book fan, I was starting to think this movie was never going to release. It has been constantly delayed since its original date in 2018 and when COVID-19 struck I was sure it would just be dropped on Disney+ or another streaming service. That is not the case. For the first movie I saw in a theatre since they closed in March, was it any good? Was this a good cap on the Fox X-Men franchise or did it go out on a whimper? Probably more the latter.

The New Mutants begins after a tragedy that leaves a young Mutant named Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt) in a strange facility with four other mutants; Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), and Roberto Da Costa (Henry Zaga); with the mysterious Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) as she helps them come to terms with their abilities all while they encounter strange apparitions and their greatest fears. In addition to controlling their powers, a major theme of the movie was that we all have good and bad inside of us and it’s up to us to go one way or the other. Of the ones I’ve seen, I believe this was also the first superhero horror movie and it is packed with jump scares and creepy imagery, though not as much as I expected.

In the first act, I was expecting more character build-up as it is an ensemble movie, but the focus was mostly on Danielle and Rahne with some good scenes with Illyana. Throughout the movie Sam and Roberto seemed to be only there to round out the team and when they had scenes showing backstory for them they felt very shoehorned in and out of place. There’s an early scene with Sam where he has a vision with his dad which I didn’t understand and probably could’ve been moved to a later point in the movie when it would have made more sense. There is also a good romantic element between two cast members, and a less developed one between two others, which had some of the best acting in the movie and felt very genuine.

As the movie progresses, the characters and the viewers start trusting Dr. Reyes and her “superiors” less and less. This culminates in the reveal of who her superiors are which most X-Men fans should know, and it was a genuine surprise for me so I won’t spoil it. Sadly, they’ve planted a seed with that which will never grow since this is the final movie in this franchise thanks to the Disney/Fox merger.

The third act was quite good and is where characters like Illyana shined as she seemed to be the closest to an actual superhero this movie has (despite being a murderer). It was also cool seeing how each of their powers came into use in a fight, although there’s never that kind of The Avengers like group shot. Still, the connection between the new mutants was easy to see by the time the movie ended.

One thing I appreciated in the movie that I know would be useful for the project(s) I’m currently working on, is the fact that the movie is pretty much only set in one location. That was definitely a factor in keeping the budget low, although there is some impressive CGI and vfx during the horror scenes and the third act. The set design was also minimal as it was a sterile hospital though there are a couple of rooms they go in that have more personality like the hidden club house where they use a lie detector on each other.

The cinematography was fine, it didn’t have much that stood out to me. There was one part in the third act when Illyana was using her powers where it cut between two locations without changing the angle that I thought was pretty cool. Similarly, the music was passable and didn’t have anything that would get me excited enough to but the soundtrack. The dialogue also lacked subtext and pretty much led you to know exactly what characters were going to say or do and often made characters seem stupid especially with how others don’t believe when some of them say they encountered strange things happening until pretty late into the movie.

Like I alluded to earlier, I believe the editing could’ve been improved, especially with how long they could’ve been tweaking it with all the delays. Some of the scenes felt out of place like nobody watched the whole thing in one go to see if it all made sense. It also would’ve benefited from spending more time with the ensemble early on with more scenes focused on each of them or even like a montage of what they do every day to show more of their unique personalities, especially Roberto and Sam who only started to get mor screen time at the halfway mark.

All in all, I think my favorite part of this movie was the movie theatre popcorn I’ve missed so much. Next to that I thought Illyana was very well portrayed compared to her comics counterpart (she is the only one I’m familiar with so I can’t really judge the rest). There were several other elements I enjoyed such as the romantic subplot and the action and horror elements, but overall I’d say it was just pretty good. If you’re desperate to return to the theatres like I was then at least wait for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. That should be much better than this.

Rating: 6/10