After having four release dates, The New Mutants finally hit theaters this weekend, adding a total of five release dates for a movie nobody believed they’d end up seeing at all. The New Mutants was also made before the Fox and Disney merger, so when the movie kept getting pushed, one started to assume that if this movie was going to somehow tie in with the MCU, due to the fact that The New Mutants was planning on having reshoots, but even those never happened and no one knows why. We’ll probably start hearing more stories about the behind the scenes on why the reshoots never happened or why this movie kept getting pushed. It came to a point that Fox (at the time) needs to release this movie, whether it’s in theaters or on a streaming platform. Some even speculated if The New Mutants would keep it’s August 28th release date because of the pandemic that our country is currently undergoing, but surprisingly, it kept its date. So, with The New Mutants finally hitting theaters, that are currently open in select cities, this is a movie that never really finds it’s footing, nor does it actually contribute any new or exciting material for the comic-book movie genre.
Set in what looks like to be abandoned and secret institution, five young teenage mutants are brought together to undergo certain treatments, who are then told by Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga), will cure them of the dangers of their powers. When the five of them start discovering their abilities and their potential, they band and fight together to escape their past sins and save themselves.
The New Mutants had the utmost potential of being something new and inventive for the comic-book movie world. Comic-book movies have been evolving for the last 10 years and it’s been proven that they can be taken seriously because they’ve earned more respect with movies like Logan, Joker or The Dark Knight. But we’ve also seen in this genre is letting the genre expand into new territory. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was experimenting in the realm of a political thriller, Ant-Man was a heist flick and Logan was a slow burning western. New Mutants was being emphasized as a horror movie, but staying in the vein of a comic-book movie, and clearly, the marketing was highlighting the horror factor. Sadly, The New Mutants missed the mark on having the most important and crucial component of any horror movie; it’s just not scary, even remotely. Director Josh Boone, who has proven to be a competent and impressive storyteller with the film The Fault in Our Stars, takes the coming of age narrative, and applies it to both a horror movie and a comic-book movie, but it never lends anything creative or new fashioned. There’s definitely moments that seem as if something promising will happen, and Josh Boone, clearly, has an appreciation for neat horror visuals and homages to other horror movies, but the horror and the level of tension in The New Mutants falls flat and doesn’t serve as much weight as one might hope. And as far as New Mutants being a comic-book movie, that aspect of the movie felt more like an after thought and not something that was taken as serious.
One aspect of The New Mutants that may have been the worst and unforgiving piece of the puzzle was the character and performance from Blu Hunt, who is our main and titular character, Danielle Moonstar. Danielle is a mutant who has the ability to create illusions, based on the fears and desires of other people, and while the character seemed to be a great idea on paper, the execution and performance of character is atrocious. It’s sad to note that this is Blu Hun’t film debut because this character is given very little to do with the other characters and it’s story as a whole. The movie also tries to force a romantic relationship with Danielle and the character Rahne Sinclair, played by Maisie Williams, and even that comes across as poorly developed and there wasn’t enough time to get invested with these two, due to how poor the rest of the characters are developed.
The New Mutants is also a severely rushed movie. The first ten minutes, or so, of the movie rushed through so much character backgrounds and setup material, in order to get that full investment. It then made the conflicts not earned, the stakes weren’t that high and it made this whole journey uninspiring and severely uneventful. There wasn’t enough time to really get in the mindset of the characters, for a large majority of the movie.
Surprisingly, there’s a few aspects of The New Mutants that save it from being an absolute disaster. The first thing that came to no shock, was great Anya Taylor-Joy was in the movie. Anya Taylor-Joy is one of the brightest and best working young talents that’c currently working in the world of Hollywood. Even if she’s in a movie that didn’t quite work all that well, she will always turn our strong and magnetic performances, simply because of how much charm she has on screen. Aside from the problems New Mutants does have, Anya Taylor-Joy is a scene stealer in the movie. She elevates the material by making it much more passable and more entertaining. Charlie Heaton, one of the other mutants, is also quite good in the movie. Being famous from his role as Jonathan Byers from Stranger Things, Heaton was an impressive tool in this movie because, while there is a lack of character development, Heaton and Joy are the two most developed and better presented characters in the whole movie. And as far as other positives go, The New Mutants does have an exciting finale because it was the only moment in the moment that had any serviceable amount of entertainment. There’s not much action in the movie, but as far the climactic battle at the end, it was pretty impressive.
The New Mutants is by no means the worst movie of the year, and some might have expected this movie to be not be as good because of how many times it kept getting pushed. True that may be, but comic-book movies (as previously stated) are more respected now than they’ve ever been. They’re the most popular genre today, and for good reasons because they’re fun and deliver some great moments and terrific spectacle. New Mutants could have revolutionized the horror genre with the comic book movie lens, but sadly it’s contributions doesn’t spark any fresh substance to keep the comic-book movie genre thriving. Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Heaton give solid and believable performances, the battle at the end is cool to experience, but New Mutants is not scary, it poorly develops its world and characters and it’s got very little heart. There’s nothing new here.
My grade for The New Mutants: C-
Zane's take at the Cinema's 