Written by Samuel Niles
It was, perhaps, optimistic to think that The New Mutants’ delays were solely the result of the Disney/Fox merger and had nothing to do with the film’s quality.
The film centers on five teenage mutants who have trouble dealing with their powers—all while being hospitalized under the careful watch of Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga). Protagonist Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) doesn’t know what her powers are at the start of the film, she’s only been sent to this hospital because she was the sole, unscratched survivor of a (supposed) tornado. The other inhabitants are Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), who can transform into a wolf, Ilyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), a sorceress of sorts, Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), who is gifted with the ability to fly while in a state of pure energy, and Bobby Da Costa (Henry Zaga), who can manipulate solar energy.
The New Mutants has a lot of cool stuff going on conceptually. A superhero horror movie that takes inspiration from the likes of The Breakfast Club with its teen dynamics….it’s a great idea. But these elements don’t go beyond the idea stage. Rather than properly embracing the inventive opportunities of its genres, The New Mutants treats them like “flavors of the week.”
The horror (the biggest selling point in how this “isn’t like other superhero movies”) is unimaginative and toothless, relying on the least inspired of tropes and doing nothing fresh or interesting with them. A confession scene with *gasp* no Priest, “creepy” eyeless slender men with sharp teeth, a “spooky” smiley face, and a burnt, screaming CGI corpse didn’t have to be weightless and uninteresting, but the film surrounding them is a pace-less mess, that relies on loud noises, lots of running to (falsely) convey energy, and completely ineffective quick cuts that don’t disorient like they should.
The characterizations and general drama don’t fare any better. Writer-director Josh Boone and co-writer Knate Lee rely on generic tropes and paint their characters in the broadest of strokes, watering down psychological and dramatic concepts down to their most basic and dullest. “Why didn’t I just die with them….why me…?” bemoans Dani. Dr. Reyes then informs her that, “survivor’s guilt is a common reaction to trauma. We look for reasons, most of the time, we find none…but the reason you survived is you’re a very uncommon girl.”
We have a film dealing with concepts like survivor’s guilt, trauma, and the treasure trove that comes with exploring such human ideas through the lens of superheroes and the human imagination, and dialogue like this is the best Boone and Lee could come up with? The script has the soullessness of a college lecture with none of the insight, and this isn’t even restricted to the thematic or psychological concepts. Even the “teen angst” or camaraderie feels like it’s part of a checklist. If you can’t tell through Ilyana’s racism that she doesn’t like the Native American Dani, her “accidental bump” should do the trick.
The film reaches an absolute low point with the Fun™ montage. The characters spike Dr. Reyes’ tea (the little scamps) and then have Fun™ as they dance to rock music, roll each other around in wheelchairs, impersonate Dr. Reyes, and do other Rebellious Fun™ things. The actors almost certainly enjoyed shooting the scene–and bless them for it–but having fun making a film doesn’t make for fun watching it, and in the context of the vapid script, the scene comes across as nauseatingly disingenuous.
In fairness, the film isn’t all bad, but the only consistently good element would be Maisie Williams’s performance. The rest of the cast is arguably as incredibly talented as her, so one can’t necessarily blame them for not being able to elevate the scraps they were given (especially when Heaton and Taylor-Joy have to do those accents). The next closest thing to a consistently good element would be the climax, in which the two genres sometimes mesh beautifully as the characters go up against a “Demon Bear.” It’s a sometimes interesting balance of spectacle and surreal, but any other “good” to be found in the film is fleeting. Beyond the concept, there’s little in The New Mutants that stands out as being particularly interesting or indicates that it could have possibly been good. It’s just…nothing, and anything good feels like a mistake or like the filmmakers lucked out.
Now that it’s out, The New Mutants seems to have lost its claim to fame. Before its release, people could gossip about all sorts of things: when it was going to release, if it was going to release, why it was delayed, will there be reshoots, will they join the MCU, and so on. Now that it’s released, though, there’s nothing left to discuss.
