Ah, The New Mutants: an attempt by Fox to somehow do something else different with the X-Men franchise prior to Disney buying up all that intellectual property. I always felt Fox took the most chances with its superhero flicks, given the likes of Deadpool and Logan, and why not do the New Mutants like some sort of teen horror movie? Four of the five characters young mutants in the movie–namely Magick, Sunspot, Wolfbane, and Mirage–could very easily be done as horror if looked at the right way. OK, Cannonball isn’t all that scary, but the demon sorceress, the burning man, the werewolf, and the woman who can conjure your worst fears could all be scary if done right.
I actually considered going to see this in local drive-in, but could never find a showing that didn’t require me to stay up very late on a school night. So, with that in mind, let’s see if Fox had a good reason to push this thing back as many times as it did.
Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) is the sole survivor of some sort of mystery attack on her reservation. A newly empowered mutant, Dani is taken to a mysterious institute under the care of Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga). Dani isn’t quite sure what her mutant powers are, but she’s not alone in the compound. There’s also bitchy Illyana (Anya Taylor-Joy), good ol’ boy Sam (Charlie Heaton), rich boy Roberto who for some reason keeps working in the kitchens (Henry Zaga), and quiet religious Rahne (Maisie Williams). Reyes has promised the group that as they gain control of their powers, they can go to work for her superior. Everyone assumes that to mean the X-Men.
However, strange things start happening as all the different teens have visions of their worst and most traumatizing nightmares. These things are solid and real, not just some random hallucinations. What is causing them? Is it connected to Dani or the thing that destroyed Dani’s entire community? And what exactly is Reyes’s angle? There’s an invisible forcefield around the institute, preventing any of her young charges from leaving, and that does seem to be Reyes’s own mutant power. What is even going on?
As horror goes, The New Mutants isn’t all that scary. As teenage drama, it’s very by-the-numbers with each of the five being something of a stereotype for this sort of story: the new girl, the rich boy, the nice boy, the quiet girl, and the mean girl. The performances are fine, but with the exception of Taylor-Joy’s take on Illyana, not particularly noteworthy. If anything, I wasn’t sure what was the most cartoonish: Williams’s Scottish accent, Heaton’s Southern accent, or Taylor-Joy’s Russian accent. In many ways, it was something like the original X-Men with Dani as the Wolverine stand-in being introduced to this whole new world, only with Illyana’s mean girl added to the mix.
I gotta say, Taylor-Joy really does stand out in a cast full of the standard group you’d see in a movie like this, namely somewhat recognizable actors from various successful TV shows aimed at a younger demographic. This is an actress who can probably say more with her frown than others can with their whole face. As for the rest, I’ll also give Williams, here playing the direwolf this time around, some credit for a character that is nothing like Arya Stark. But really, this was just about the most “meh” movie I think I’ve seen in the last few months.
Grade: C
0 Comments