The New Mutants Review: A Weird Mutation Fails the Terrific Cast

After more than 3 years of delays due to studio mergers and scrapped reshoots, The New Mutants finally hits theaters as the first major studio film release since the Covid-19 shutdown. 

The studio concerns about the film’s direction are unfortunately warranted. A fantastic trio of female performances almost overcomes the predictable story. However, the story put on display by director and co-writer Josh Boone just doesn’t do much beyond providing some creepy imagery. While not a badly made film by any stretch, this film is very slow and never really kicks into gear until the 3rd act.

The New Mutants isn’t the worst X-Men film but the characters created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod are short-chained by a predictable plot that doesn’t go anywhere until the 3rd act. The ending is exciting, but is tonally different from the rest of the film. However, the amazing concept of watching a group of teenage mutants confront the psychological impact of their destructive abilities is a novel approach that deserves recognition.

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Introducing The New Mutants Starting Lineup

Anya Taylor-Joy, Blu Hunt and Maisie Williams form a compelling trio within this quintet. These three instill a tremendous amount of depth to these characters.

Illyana aka Magi is the most confident of the teenagers. She has complete command of her powers and absolutely takes on the Magneto role in the film. Magik pokes and prods at the other teens, but when all of the others are looking for someone to lead, she steps up.

Danielle Moonstar is the protagonist of the film and the conduit to this horrific setting. Like most of the other teens, she feels an almost overwhelming about of guilt. Unlike the rest of the group, she doesn’t know what her mutant abilities are, but it’s quite clear to the audience and one other character. Blu Hunt is probably the most unknown of the cast, but she elevates every scene she’s in opposite Williams and Taylor-Joy.

Rahne Sinclair aka Wolfsbane bears very few similarities to Arya Stark, yet Maisie Williams crushes. In Game of Thrones, Arya Stark has no interest in conforming to the expectations society has of women. Rahne Sinclair wants to fit into society so much so that she wants to stow away a part of herself. She’s content to stay at the facility and becomes a source of comfort for Moonstar. Sinclair is the most clever of the mutants, but Williams’s humble approach to the character is much appreciated.

The relationship between Moonstar and Sinclair is quite sweet, while the interaction between Moonstar and Rasputin is wonderfully contentious. Hunt does a great job of giving Moonstar some backbone. Every time Rasputin tries to bully Moonstar, she fights back, while knowing she has no idea how to defend herself against Magik.

Unfortunately, the same level of performance can’t be said of their male counterparts. Charlie Heaton is a gifted actor, but he’s saddled with an awful southern drawl as Sam Guthrie aka Cannonball. He suffers from a very similar type of guilt to Moonstar, but has none of the depth shown by Hunt. In a similar vane, Roberto de Castro is basically a prick. You’d think with his tragic backstory he’d be a bit more humble, instead the focus is on his rich family heritage. There are a couple of scenes featuring Guthrie-Castro and Castro-Magik that help soften Castro’s hard shell.

These characters all work well together and the interplay works more often than not. However, the best cast can only do so much to overcome a slow-moving story and a bad mix of genres.

Cardinal Sin of Horror Cinema

The film tries to mix The Breakfast Club with psychological horror and succeeds at neither goal. The Breakfast Club angle comes through with the way the teenagers sneaking behind Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga), who runs the mysterious facility.

However, what Boone seems to miss is that with The Breakfast Club, the audience doesn’t want to leave the library and connection the characters start to develop towards each other keeps the characters physically in the library. There’s no physical barrier to the high schoolers leaving. With The New Mutants, aside from some creepy imagery, there’s nothing about the facility that’s interesting and there’s a physical barrier that keeps the young mutants locked inside. A key to making a movie set in one particular setting is to make that place a character and unfortunately, the film fails to make much use of the setting.

However, the single worst offense for a horror film is to be predictable. The plot utterly fails to surprise. From the moment Moonstar enters the facility you can guess the villain and the reason the mysterious events begin taking place is clearly telegraphed.  The film doesn’t try too hard to throw the audience off despite the characters mostly being kept in the dark. The key to a great thriller or horror film is being just as surprised as the characters on-screen. The moment the audience knows more than the characters on screen, a plot twist has to come in. Otherwise, the feeling of boredom begins to set in and as an audience member, you’re just waiting for something to happen.

Universe of Plot Holes

The X-Men are used as motivation for the teens to behave and understand their power. It’s an interesting carrot to dangle in front of the characters, but the incentive falls apart. While not a large part of the movie, the characters in The New Mutants are quite aware of The X-Men, which stands to reason they would know about Professor Xavier’s School for the Gifted. A setting that exists to train mutants in how to use their abilities. Why would they need to be kept at this facility? Don’t worry no character in the film tries to answer the question.

The film never clearly expresses how long the other characters have been kept at the facility. Also, until the unsettling events start occurring, none of the characters, not even Magik are trying to escape. Their form of rebellion just involves sneaking behind the doctor’s back.

While the action scenes and CGI are tonally inconsistent from the rest of the film, they’re actually handled quite well.

The New Mutants Wrap Up

The latest X-Men spinoff has a lot of unfulfilled promise.  Unfortunately, The New Mutants fails to generate a compelling story for these talented actors and compelling characters to play in. The film does enough to justify its existence, but is absolutely forgettable in a sea of other comic book adaptations.

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