Movie Review: The New Mutants

The New Mutants [2020]

Sometimes movies get screwed by the studio that produces it. Sometimes it's a matter of the studio demanding reshoots or that the movie have a certain tone to be marketable. Sometimes an actor or character had to be recasted or written out of a movie. And then sometimes you get the absolute clusterfuck of a movie like The New Mutants, which, through no fault of the people actually making the movie, was delayed so many times. Coming out as a spinoff to several poorly-received sequels (X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix) was bad enough, but when the the Fox/Disney deal came through with the rights for the X-Men reverting back to Disney/Marvel, it also meant that this movie... well, quite literally didn't have a future. Toss in the fact that the movie was delayed a stunning four times due to the pandemic and the contract requiring that the studio release it in theatres, and this being an R-rated superhero movie... and honestly, I'm a huge X-Men fan, and it took me nearly a year since 2020 to actually remember to look up whether this movie has released or not. 

And the result is.... surprisingly average? The movie runs 90 minutes, and it's pretty coherent with what sort of story it wants to tell. Removing my X-Men comic book fanboyism for a minute, I can appreciate that at least the movie felt coherent. A group of young mutants find themselves trapped in a facility that claims itself to be a hospital, but turns out that it's a prison and that there's something sinister happening. Meanwhile, weird shit starts to happen in the facility, caused by the mutant powers of one of the children. Other than the jumpscares (which, surprisingly, there aren't that many of) there really aren't too many surprises about what's going on here -- the major plot twists of the movie is pretty much telegraphed within the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie. The doctor is actually evil, the spooky stuff come from Dani's fear-inducing powers, and all the five kids end up working together to fight a bigger evil. 

The movie primarily follows Danielle Moonstar, waking up after the town she lived in is apparently wiped out by a hurricane. She wakes up in the weird asylum-facility surrounded by forcefields, and the other kids in the place are weirdoes. In quick succession, we're introduced to the other New Mutants. Rahne Sinclair is a religious girl that's plagued with guilt after being beaten half to death by the local priest who thinks she's possessed by a demon -- and Rahne later mauls the priest in self-defense. Ilyanna Rasputin is a massive bitch with a little dragon sock-puppet who immediately gets hostile with Dani, and we learn that she's traumatized as a child by what's heavily implied to be sex slavers. Sam Guthrie is a coal-miner's son who accidentally caused an explosion that killed his father; while Roberto da Costa is a rich kid who we later learn accidentally burned his girlfriend to death. 

And the movie is very, very slow paced. There's a quick info-dump about mutants, and then there's the odd mystery of who Dani is and why the facility has a forcefield around it, but, again, the movie is pretty transparent about telegraphing that Dr. Reyes isn't very nice with her solitary confinement cells and clearly contacting some enigmatic master. Meanwhile, the fact that everyone in the asylum starts to have nightmares after Dani is there, and constant showcases of 'psionic power' on Reyes' computer screens, really makes it pretty obvious that it's Dani that's behind the nightmares. 

I do like the concept of what's going on, on paper. We learn bits and bytes of what Rahne, Ilynana, Sam and Roberto are willing to share, but the true depths of their childhood traumas aren't something they face until Dani brings them to life literally -- Rahne gets branded again by the priest that attacked her as a kid, Sam has to relive the day he blew up his dad's coal mine, Roberto gets stalked by the burning zombie corpse of his girlfriend in the pool, and Ilyanna's nightmarish smiley-faced tormentors form some tangible antagonists for most of the finale. 

It's just that... we learn about the traumas these characters suffer in the past, and they kind of open up to each other, but we really don't learn anything about who they are. Dani and Rahne are the only ones with any real semblance of characterization, although it's mostly just their romance, really... all the kids are some variation of generic heroic cipher when not expositioning or reacting to their past traumas. The boys, in particular, feel particularly extraneous and I really didn't get a feel for their characters up to the end of the movie. Ilyanna is perhaps the most entertaining, but that's probably because (unnecessary racist jokes notwithstanding) she actually gets to act out both the role of the alpha bitch of the cast, but also someone more vulnerable. 

The antagonist of the movie are also frustratingly vague. Dr. Reyes doesn't really have that much of a personality beyond being the evil doctor pretending to be nice, but it's pretty obvious that it's all an act. And she doesn't act nearly sinister enough to be either scary or entertaining... and despite all the notes pointing to 'Essex', we don't actually get Mister Sinister in this movie. No, the final 'big bad' is just a monstrous CGI demon bear conjured by Dani, who eats Dr. Reyes and just roars around for the other four New Mutants to use their powers on until Dani wakes up. Beyond the neat showcase of Magik's demon-arm manifesting and maybe Sunspot's first 'flame on', the visuals aren't really all that spectacular either. 

And...  and I feel like the movie could've worked a lot better if it tried to either focus on the young adult growth side, or the psychological horror side, or even just the regular horror side. None of these parts of the movie, I feel, stand out powerfully enough to make New Mutants feel too novel. Heck, the only real novelty of this movie is having a lesbian romance between the two main characters, which, admittedly, is probably the first of its kind we've seen on a theatrical film. But with everything else... I feel like other superhero shows like Legion, Swamp Thing, Constantine or WandaVision does all the psychological or horror stuff so, so much better.

And let's not even get into just how much they change from the comics. I'm not even a particularly huge New Mutants fan, but even I know that they basically cut out one of the main New Mutants, Karma (who is a lesbian in the comics) and just slapped her ethnicity on Rahne (who isn't). Dr. Reyes was also a heroic character in the comics; Dani's powers involved making mirages instead of being a fear-nexus; Magik's backstory had nothing to do with sex slaves; Magik wasn't casually racist; Lockheed wasn't associated with Magik; Sunspot was black... a couple of changes are obviously expected when adapting a work of fiction into the screen, but there were so many odd changes that they made. Toss in the fact that the movie was pretty lukewarm... but at least if you decide to watch this movie, it's a coherent story.