The New Mutants

Starring: Blu Hunt, Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, Alice Braga

Director: Josh Boone

After her reservation is attacked by an unseen monster resulting in the death of her father, Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) wakes up in a facility under the supervision and surveillance of Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga). She's not alone, learning her fellow captive teens Rahne (Maisie Williams), Illyana (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam (Charlie Heaton) and Roberto (Henry Zaga) are mutants and that the facility is a stop before being promoted to X-Men. As Dani attempts to fit in, learn her ability, and find out why she is at the facility, she learns that Dr. Reyes' intentions may be more sinister than the teens believe as they find themselves under attack from the demons of their past.

For those that don't know, this was finished in 2017 and was meant to come out in 2018. Due to poor test screenings, Fox decided to do reshoots which delayed the film's release. Except those reshoots never happened and the movie kept being delayed until Fox was eventually bought by Disney. In turn, Disney felt the film didn't mesh with their current direction of the Marvel universe and had been delaying the film's release until they decided what to do with it. Many felt it would be released on Disney+ but here it is, being released this weekend in all its glory. Having seen the film now, the mystery and backstory behind the film is much more interesting than what we end up getting.

This film is a mess and afraid to commit to a tone. The director/writer Josh Boone, who directed the YA adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars, can't pick what genre he wants the film to be. Is it a horror? Is it a YA love story? Is it a superhero film? If it's a horror, it's not a very good one. I jump pretty easily at things and I don't remember even flinching at those moments. The love story, which is between Williams' Rahne and Hunt's Dani, is actually kinda sweet despite being very rushed. This is one of the first superhero films to actually heavily spotlight a LGBTQ relationship rather than a casual mention and while it varies in its success, it's one of the few positives to take away from the film.

I'm giving the final question about whether it's a superhero film its own paragraph. This aspect is where the film really lost me. It does have a couple cool moments but the climax of the film is so jaw-droppingly disconnected from what came before it. I know what Boone and co-writer Knate Lee are attempting to do, but the parable they use is so fleetingly referenced it comes out of nowhere. The film runs a little over ninety minutes so this abrupt story shift makes it feel like something is missing or was cut that could have helped this make more sense.

I like all of the actors in the film and they do what they can with the stereotypical characters they are given. While many of them have tragic backstories, they are all ultimately there for the same reason so there is little to differentiate them outside of these stereotypes. Once their demons start to terrorize them, you don't really care because time wasn't given for them to develop outside of their stereotype.

I get what Boone was trying to do with this movie but it just didn't work on any level. I hope his TV adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand is much better when it hits later this year. I will give it this though. Despite all the problems, I will say it was better than Dark Phoenix.

Grade: D