The New Mutants (2020)
REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER
THE NEW MUTANTS. I rather enjoyed it. It got such poor reviews from critics and comics fans, my expectations were low, but if you can separate it from the comics and treat it as its own thing: a film that tries to give a contemporary X-Men story a Mike Flanagan horror treatment, then you can enjoy a half-decent low-key provisionally spooky movie that feels like a pilot episode for a Netflix series (which I’d happily watch).
Its spare asylum aesthetic evokes Scorsese’s overwrought SHUTTER ISLAND and Gore Verbinski’s cranky and daft A CURE FOR WELLNESS.
THE NEW MUTANTS is pleasingly low-budget(ish) compared to other X-Men films, which often suffer from having too much money spent on them (APOCALYPSE and FUTURE PAST are like overspend frenzies, where vfx have been thrown at the screen to solve story problems).
It has an intimacy between the characters that reminds me of Josh Trank’s CHRONICLE, a film of which I’m fond.
However, the writer/director, Josh Boone, has taken out the race material from his adaptation (in the Sunspot and Dr Reyes characters). He has suffered criticism for this. The film might have had more depth - and power - if it had been kept in. The way the comics dealt with race was one of the things we loved about The New Mutants. It’s a loss that will be too much for some fans.
One consolation is Anya Taylor Joy, who is excellent as Magik, with a glove-puppet Lockheed (The “pet” dragon, who usually sits on Kitty Pryde’s shoulder). Anya looks just right, and brings attitude and a vital energy to the film.
Unfortunately, the big boss monster at the end is a Demon Grizzly Bear, who, while being nicely realised, reminded me of my dog, Chester, so I couldn’t really find him threatening.
By the time the film closes, one feels its story has been too small and self-contained. A storm in a teacup.
I liked its pacing and the time it gave to its characters, and it carries some good ideas, but I wanted to rewrite almost every scene and choreograph the fights differently (why have Sunspot activate his powers but then pick up a big wooden plank as a weapon?) Yet I still warmed to it and the experience of watching it in a cinema with my children (in their twenties).
THE NEW MUTANTS is a curious film. It was meant to be the first of a trilogy, it underwent a lot of reshoots and edits, and its release date was pushed back three or four times. Something was going seriously wrong during production (not least Fox being bought by Disney). Yet, overall, I liked it and found it more rewarding than Fox’s recent, botched, X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX. It works as a set-up film. I would love to see more of the mutant gang.
