I still remember the date when I saw the first trailer for The New Mutants (2020), 20th Century Fox's final installment in its long-running X-Men film franchise. It was just after midnight on Friday, October 13th, 2017, and during one of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert's commercial breaks, I pulled out my phone and noticed a notification for a new video from Fox's YouTube channel. Without thinking, I pressed on the link and was taken aback by the teen horror flick approach to a group of mutants from within the X-Men universe, especially given how little I knew about the film before watching the trailer, as well as the trailer's spooky atmosphere of being released during October. So naturally, I was curious, but I would have had to see it on April 13th, 2018, to have an opinion. Unfortunately, however, that would prove not to be the case.
Despite being filmed in 2017, The New Mutants would infamously have its theatrical release delayed four times. The first time was to February 22nd, 2019, to avoid competing with the studio's own Deadpool 2 (2018), the second to August 2nd, 2019, to avoid Dark Phoenix (2019), the third to April 3rd, 2020, after Disney's acquisition of Fox's film and television assets in early 2019, and the fourth and final time to August 28th, 2020, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Three years, six months, and twenty-five days after seeing the original trailer, I finally watched The New Mutants on HBO Max before it inevitably heads off to Disney+ soon. The movie is okay, to put it mildly. It is not as bad as the critics say it is, but at the same time, it is nowhere near as good as it could have been.
The plot for The New Mutants follows a group of five teenagers with unique mutant powers as they are trapped in an isolated mental hospital facility, where they are supervised by the mysterious Dr. Cecilia Reyes (played by Alice Braga), who has them undergo repeated therapy sessions and practices on how to control their abilities. These mutants include Danielle "Dani" Moonstar, a.k.a. Mirage (played by Blu Hunt)'s ability to create mental projections of other people's deepest fears and desires, Rahne Sinclair, a.k.a. Wolfsbane (played by Maisie Williams)'s skill to transform into a werewolf, Illyana Rasputin, a.k.a. Magik (played by Anya Taylor-Joy)'s sorcery and teleportation skills, Samuel "Sam" Guthrie, a.k.a. Cannonball (played by Charlie Heaton) and his self-propulsion powers, and Roberto "Bobby" da Costa, a.k.a. Sunspot (played by Henry Zaga) with his ability to manipulate solar energy. However, all is not as it seems, as dark secrets and a bunch of creepy stuff emerge.
The concept itself, which pulls from movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), The Breakfast Club (1985), and the A Nightmare on Elm Street series, is intriguing for a superhero film. The claustrophobic hospital setting of Cuckoo's Nest, the 'shared teenage bonding through trauma' dynamic of The Breakfast Club, and the psychological horror elements of 1980s horror flicks make for a winning combination. However, the execution of the said concept and story come across as both amateurish and akin to that of a big-budget soap opera. From the less-than-stellar acting, TV-level visual effects and direction, and the surface-level approach to some of the more prominent themes of teenage guilt and emotional trauma, much of this film is a missed opportunity to create a truly unique comic book movie experience. While there is a good amount of underlying suspense and enjoyability built up before the actual scares (which are about as mild as they can get), the movie's payoff feels rather underwhelming considering the anticipation I had for this film before the Covid-19 pandemic. There almost always seems to be a negative that drags it down for every positive this film brings.
First off, the acting and characters. Sometimes, the performances are not too shabby, like Williams' and Taylor-Joy's as Rahne and Illyana, respectively. Rahne, a Scottish werewolf with suppressed trauma from her religious upbringing, is the most fascinating and sympathetic one among the group of teenage mutant misfits. Her budding relationship with Dani is also surprisingly tender and heartwarming, and it stole the show for me. On the other hand, the acting is either worse or blander than that seen in a series from The CW. For instance, Adam Beach, who plays Dani's father, provides one of the worst examples of overacting I have seen in a long time. Keep in mind; I don't have a problem with Alec Baldwin's performance as Mr. Conductor from Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000). The performances from Heaton and Zaga are serviceable at best, but their characters (Sam, a mild-mannered son of a Kentucky coal miner, and Roberto, a rebellious bad boy from Brazil, respectively) are incredibly one-note and shallowly written, which does not do much for their efforts. Hunt does her best with her given material, but her shared scenes with Williams shine. While a standout in terms of personality and role in the action sequences, Taylor-Joy's character of Illyana, who stems from Russia, is relatively one-dimensional. Most of her dialogue consists of sassy quips and casually racist remarks towards Dani, who is of Native American descent. There is room for further exploration on why she ended up being the person she is due to childhood trauma, but some of her backstory's finer details do not entirely add up.
Technically, the movie's moderate-sized budget looks like it has been stretched out to its maximum, much to this film's detriment. The cinematography has a made-for-television aesthetic with its frequent use of medium shots and wide shots, which look both generic and repetitive after a while. The visual effects for the movie's creepy creatures are not bad but had there been a little more money invested in them, perhaps they would not have come across as discarded 'monsters of the week' from an abandoned sci-fi TV pilot. While there are some vague hints at continuity within the larger X-Men cinematic universe ala stock footage from Logan (2017), this movie feels like something pulled out of the studio archives for the sake of putting it out there for people to see during a global pandemic, no less.
As someone who had been rooting for this movie to succeed, I am disappointed that the end to Fox's X-Men series is rather lackluster. Even if Kevin Fiege over at Marvel Studios were to somehow incorporate one of these individuals into the Marvel Cinematic Universe through the multiverse, there would have to be significant re-workings of their backstories and roles in the MCU's big picture. While this film may gain a cult following a few years from now, I will, in the meantime, be waiting to see how Marvel will re-introduce and incorporate mutants like these and the X-Men into the MCU.
Final Score: 5 out of 10
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