“Power like this can’t be contained.”
Directed by Josh Boone
Starring Maisie Williams (iBoy), Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma), Charlie Heaton (Marrowbone), Alice Braga (Predators), Blu Hunt (film debut) and Henry Zaga (XOXO)
After her reservation community is destroyed by a terrifying force, Dani Moonstar (Hunt) wakes in a hospital. Dr Reyes (Braga) explains that this facility is for young mutants to learn to control their powers, and that in time Dani and fellow patients Ilyana (Taylor-Joy), Roberto (Zaga), Sam (Heaton) and Rahne (Williams) might be able to move on to her superior’s establishment for gifted youngsters (wink wink.)
Dani’s power – a largely uncontrolled psychic ability to manifest the fears of those around her as terrifying and nigh-unstoppable material hallucination – emerges while she struggles with her new social dynamic – Ilyana is a bitch, Roberto a super-entitled lech, Sam and Rahne are messes and everyone is riddled with guilt – begins a relationship with Rahne and begins to question just what Reyes is up to. As monsters stalk the halls and the true agenda of the hospital becomes clear, the new mutants must come together or fall alone.
What’s wrong with it?
The biggest problem with this movie is hype. We’ve been waiting for this horror-themed take on the X-Men universe for about three years, which means that in our minds it had built up to be either something awesome or some kind of insoluble hot mess. Honestly, it isn’t really either. I suspect that in the studio’s mind it was the latter. It wasn’t an R-rated gorefest, nor was it a conventional superhero movie, which placed it in that terrible liminal zone, the untried crossgenre experiment.
While it is expained that Roberto’s wealthy family sequestered him away to avoid scandal, and Dani and Sam are both American, it isn’t really explained how or why a Russian and a Scot are in the same American hospital. As a dilletante comic buff, I know that this is all about Mr Sinister’s Essex Foundation and its shenanigans, but it really feels odd that none of the kids question this arrangement.
What’s right with it?
The film does a good job of combining the grounded teen drama necessary as the baseline for horror with the fact that the teens in question can walk into Hell and summon blistering mystic blades out of thin air.
The film’s effects are good, but mostly low key, and bridge that horror-superhero divide, but the film is grounded in character, and these characters blend basic tropes with a solid heart and strong performances.
I have literally never shipped an X-Men movie couiple before, at all, but Dani and Rahne are so dashed adorable. I’m not fussed about Ilyana and Roberto, but there’s a touching friendship between Ilyana and Sam which is rare to see between male and female characters.
While most X-Men movies present human fears about mutants as irrational – part of the analog to real-world prejudice – this movie accepts that there is a degree to which mutants are unpredictably dangerous, especially when young, and that the analogy with prejudice breaks down under any examination because of this. Each of the new mutants is a killer, whether by accident or in anger, but the film still manages to invest us in them as people, as children and as relative innocents, so that their abuse can be seen for what it is despite the danger they represent.
How bad is it really?
Despite, or perhaps because of the horror elements, New Mutants is one of the best X-Men movies I’ve seen yet. By ditching the X-Men itself, it is able to tell a more personal, grounded story that doesn’t feel the need to shoehorn in Wolverine anywhere. I mean, seriously, no Wolverine; what a concept.
Best bit (if such there is)?
There’s a lot to like in this film, but I will never not be here for Sam’s total lack of time for Roberto’s near-pathological crushing on Ilyana.
What’s up with…?
- Bears? Everywhere else, I’ve seen that story told with two wolves. Also, perhaps its the delay in production and it was novel back then, but pretty much everyone knows that story by now, surely? Using it as your bookend is like leading with the scorpion and the frog and expecting the end to be a twist. Also, the two bears/wolves story doesn’t actually match up with the demon bear story in the main movie.
Ratings
Production values – New Mutants manages the difficult task of balancing two genres seemingly completely at odds, the one rooted in empowerment and the other in powerlessness, in part through the use of horror-flavoured effects to portray superpowers. 6
Dialogue and performances – The film is built on character – ultimately, the principal conflicts are all internal, even the thirty foot tall demon bear made out of smoke, fire and self-loathing – and the strength of the film is in its performances. 3
Plot and execution – New Mutants is a small, self-contained story that doesn’t overburden itself with digressions and unnecessary details. 4
Randomness – The downside of the film’s spare delivery is that certain aspects – most notably the name Essex – are never paid off, and left as baffling hints to those who don’t know what they mean already. 8
Waste of potential – New Mutants is not the flame-grilled hot mess it threatened to be, but neither is it the transcendent experience that ill-advised optimism may have led us to secretly hope. It’s… It’s fine, you know. It’s fine, and that’s fine. 6
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4 thoughts on “New Mutants (2020)”