The New Mutants
Directed by Josh Boone
Before you say anything let me confirm that I did not see this in a movie theater! There’s a bunch of great Drive-Ins near me and I made this the first big studio feature that I saw on one of their screens. I mean, how could I not? I’m a fan of the X-men movies and also a pretty big fan of horror in general, so this was a match made in heaven for me! The extra couple months of waiting got my hype ratings up pretty high too, so you can imagine I was pretty shocked to finally be able to see this movie and realize it is awful. Not as bad as the last X-men movie, but definitely not good. Just a quick note, this review will be slightly longer than my others because there are so many things that are wrong with this movie that it took extra time to discuss them, and I still haven’t covered everything bad about this film! So, The New Mutants!
The Meager Story.
The New Mutants is the story of Dani Moonstar, a young Cheyenne woman who is sent to a home for dangerous young mutants following the tragic death of everyone on the reservation she lived at, including her father. After arriving, Dani meets four other young people with mutant powers who all have some manner of a tragic backstory, but only one is confirmed to be super racist. As Dani undergoes tests to determine what exactly her mutant power is, she begins to suspect that everything may not be as it seems in this obviously creepy empty school where they are all held against their will and constantly being watched.
A Little Time To Vent Before I Begin.
Sorry if I got a little facetious towards the end, this movie kind of does that to me. I’ll say right up front that this is not a good movie and it is almost difficult to pick a place to start when talking about how much this movie does not work. I guess I’ll start with the big picture and work my way to the details. To start with, I was actually really excited to see The New Mutants! The trailers looked fine and adding horror elements felt like a natural fit to a setting that already is chock full of low-scale body horror. It’s not that the horror in The New Mutants is bad, it’s that the horror in The New Mutants is non-existent. Not only is there no horror, there’s no ANYTHING in this movie.
Character-Driven Films Are Mildly Dependent On Having Characters.
I assume this was trying to be a character-driven story of 5 young mutants discovering their powers and growing together to overcome the mysterious evil force containing them. In order for that character-driven plotline to work you need good characters who involve you emotionally, and that’s a big problem because there isn’t a single good character in this entire movie. Everyone is the same person, they all have a dark and mysterious past and now their trauma is their character. Trauma is of course not off-limits when making character backstories, but you need more than just a tragic event.
The Importance Of Characterization. Also Why Is This So Racist?
For example, one of the kids accidentally killed his dad and a bunch of other people. His one mode in the film is ‘I am sad that I killed my dad, I feel sorry for myself’. That’s a fine sentiment, but we need a little complexity so we can connect as an audience! And every single character is exactly like that where they have one character trait and that is who they are. This is doubly frustrating because these characters aren’t doing anything ever; all that happens is they sit around and talk about the same things over and over and over again. We have to listen to a cast of good actors who have all given good performances in other movies/shows exposit why they are sad and how bad of a situation they are in and how things may not be as they appear. And occasionally one of the kids is really racist to Dani, who is a young lady of Native American heritage, and this racist person never atones for her racism or apologizes or even acknowledges she was wrong! It’s like the movie just forgot that we all hate her now!
Oh, Also Everyone’s Powers Are Super Lame.
What makes that one character being racist even worse is that she is the only person here with a cool power who does cool things. Everyone else either has a completely lame power: sorry Maisie Williams, turning into a wolf who never does anything is not cool; a power we’ve seen before with a guy whose shtick is he’s just a worse version of the Human Torch from Fantastic Four; or a power that sounds cool but they have no idea how to show it correctly. The saddest guy has the power to charge up his body and then move very fast but his body is invulnerable while it’s happening. Think something like Quicksilver meets Juggernaut. That sounds cool but he uses that power ONCE in the ONE ACTION SEQUENCE and even then we barely see what happens when he uses his power, we just see the aftermath.
Everything Is Gray And Dull And Not Scary.
It really doesn’t help that visually The New Mutants is a slog. Every single shot is the same old same old creepy old-timey mental hospital that is in general disrepair. We spend almost the entire movie in this location and there’s never any effort to hide the fact that we’ve been spending an entire movie in two or three rooms talking about nothing. Even the monsters who show up don’t get to do anything interesting, visually or otherwise, for the brief moment they’re onscreen, that is besides being a pointless Slenderman knockoff who was featured heavily in the marketing despite not having any involvement in the story. I know that’s the marketing and not the movie but I don’t think it’s unfair to expect these “Smiley Man” monsters to feature in the movie they are advertised as featuring in!
We’ve Seen This Story Many Times Before.
I’m debating how much of the story I should reveal here. If I get too critical I’ll definitely get into spoiler territory, but the big reveal is so easily guessed and has already been done by at least three other movies in the Xmen universe. No spoilers so I will just say that every reveal is equally predictable and nonsensical, while at the same time adding nothing to the Xmen universe that this movie is confirmed to be taking place in. If you want something more specific leave a comment below and we can talk about just how stupid it is in the SPOILER HEAVY comment section below.
Even All This I Just Find The New Mutants Boring.
After all that, you probably think that I hate this movie, but I can’t even muster that level of emotion for it. Everything is so bland and dull that watching this movie is like eating a full sleeve of Saltine crackers. Sure there are elements in there that could be good when paired with other foodstuffs, but on their own, they’re just dry, tasteless, and way too salty. But in this case, the salt is actually racism. Okay, I’m starting to lose this metaphor so I’ll wrap this up by saying that I can’t think of anyone that I could recommend this movie to. There isn’t enough action for fans of adrenaline junkies, not nearly enough horror for the horror crowd, and the character drama isn’t deep enough for people who like intense character-driven work. I give this movie props for being the first of the Xmen movies to feature an onscreen lesbian romance (I think its the first?) but as a movie, it doesn’t work and there is zero reason to risk your life by going to see it.
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