REVIEW: 'The New Mutants' is more of the same
Maisie Williams, Henry Zaga, Blu Hunt, Charlie Heaton, and Anya Taylor-Joy in The New Mutants, directed by Josh Boone.
Based on the post-production problems that plagued The New Mutants, we should be considerably surprised that it was a passable product. We knew from the outset that it wasn’t going to be good, otherwise the continued delays wouldn’t have happened, but, usually in these instances, the end product tends to be a poo-poo potpourri.
The New Mutants’ biggest crime is that it’s incredibly boring, featuring a clichéd setup about five misfits locked in a creepy hospital lab who are, of course, saved in the nick of time for inexplicable reasons by the protagonist. It suffers from just about every problem that plagues an introductory superhero film: shallow plot, boring exposition and not enough time for all of the characters.
Set in the X-Men universe, the movie begins with a small monologue, only this time it’s not Professor X waxing poetic about mutating genes. Instead, it’s Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt), a Native American mutant telling a fable about two warring bears, a metaphor for the internal conflict she experiences given her powerful but uncontrollable mutant powers. After a tornado kills her father and destroys her home, she finds herself under the care of Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) in an abandoned hospital. Illyana (Anya Taylor-Joy), Rahne (Maisie Williams), Sam (Charlie Heaton) and Bobby (Henry Zaga) are the four other “patients” Dani meets, and shortly afterwards she learns they are all under Dr. Reyes’ supervision because of their mutant powers.
Envisioned as a haunted house psychological thriller-horror — and those elements are certainly quite good, there just isn’t enough of it — no character embodies the main antagonist. The idea that mutants are a danger to themselves and society is interpreted literally in this film. X-Men is supposed to be a reflection of what it’s to be like an outsider, but when the film traps all five mutants in one location without outside contact, they aren’t given a chance to show why they’re ostracized. Instead, we get sob stories about how their lives are so imperfect and a shoe-horned LGBT love story. I learn later that Dani and Rahne’s relationship in the source material is telepathic, not sexual, so I also question why director Josh Boone insists on disparaging other representations of LGBT when the only political message his gay love story sends is: “FIRST!!!”
What both impresses and annoys me most about The New Mutants is that it’s so… competent. I was ready for something bad, but I got something that wasn’t bad as I thought it would be, so it ended up being a positive experience. The production value is pretty good – I wish the mutants actually used their powers for some fun just to provide some levity – and the acting is good, but the story is tepid. As a result, you don’t feel anything for the characters.
Part of it is because director Josh Boone can’t decide which character to really focus on, because even though most of the story is told through Dani’s eyes, Rahne has the most interesting backstory and Illyana has the coolest mutant power. The worst offence came when the five teenagers hang out in their secret attic and play a game of “truth or truth” with… a lie detector. And it’s not some sexy young people party thing where they ask things like “how many people have you kissed,” it’s more plot-related like “so what’s your story?” And, of course, before we really learn anything of value some emergency pops up and they have to save each other.
I wish the film was worse so I could make fun of it. I also wish the film was better so I wouldn’t feel like I wasted time. The New Mutants is a representation of what this moribund franchise has become: it exists only to take your money, not because it is needed or wanted.
The New Mutants gets two stars out of four.
