Review: New Mutants Is The Worst X-Men Movie Ever – Forbes

Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, and Blu Hunt in 'The New Mutants'

Fox (and now Disneys) groundbreaking (if inconsistent) X-Men franchise deserved a better send-off than this nothing-burger of a movie.

Note: Im not going to lecture you about attending movie theaters, since were all adults. But I will note that I saw this at a drive-in late last night, and that Disney is reporting that the film earned $750,000 in preview screenings. Even noting 62% nationwide capacity, that still would have been around $1.25 million in preview grosses in 100% of the country which (using plausible comparisons) would have been an opening of between $13 million and $21 million for the weekend. At the moment, we might expect a $7 million-$13 million Fri-Sun debut.

Putting aside the circumstances of its release, both in terms of being delayed for over two years (mostly due to shenanigans related to Disney DIS buying Fox in mid-2019) and being the first major studio release dropped into nationwide theatrical release after months pandemic-related theater closures, The New Mutants is a miserable motion picture. Its a monotonous, redundant and irrelevant fantasy flick that fails to commit to being a teen melodrama, a YA fantasy or a horror movie, instead offering half-assed components of all three. Despite a strong cast, the all-too-rare presence of an LGBTQIA romance between two lead characters and a few moments of visual inventiveness, Josh Boone and Knate Lees The New Mutants boils down to being, yes, a terrible feature-length prequel for a sequel that absolutely no one will ever want to see.

The film concerns five teens who reside in an abandoned hospital run by Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga). Long-story short, they are all mutants with unusually dangerous powers who have unintentional (or, in one case, righteously intentional) blood on their hands and are under supervision until they learn to control their powers. Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) enters the fray after her entire reservation is wiped off the map in the films cryptic prologue, and even though she doesnt yet know what her mutant power is she is considered a danger to others. As Dani struggles to figure out what she can or cant do, while romantically bonding with persecuted lycan Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), the teens begin to experience terrifying visions linked to their own respective traumas. But all is not as it seems.

The film does indeed take place within the world of Foxs X-Men series, although that franchises random continuity negates much interconnectivity. Theres, at best, a few verbal references to the X-Men and a fleeting non-verbal reference to Charles Xavier, a character who either still runs the Xavier School For Gifted Youngsters (X-Men: Days of Future Past) or left the school to Hank McCoy after his attempts to control Jean Grey went awry (Dark Phoenix). Regardless, these arent exactly flagship characters, and nobody wears anything resembling a comic book costume, so the film has to stand on its own as a spin-off that just happens to take place in an existing universe. While the film could be commended for being a full-throated genre approximation, it still plays out as expected in terms of comic book superhero expectations.

Due to obvious franchise aspirations, we have five primary characters who all get introductions, sequences where they show off their powers, scenes where they lay out their respective traumatic origin story and set-pieces where they fend off haunted visions. Yes, thats a lot of leg work for a 90-minute movie. The monotony and redundancy resembles It, which also spent much of its running time with somewhat stand-alone sequences of its unkillable main cast being attacked by specifically-tailored terrors. That film at least had more than just stand-alone scare sequences and didnt entirely take place in a single visually drab interior locale. Considering Fox allegedly first demanded reshoots after It made $700 million worldwide, its ironic that New Mutants (essentially what Boone shot in 2017) has all of Its weakness and none of its strengths.

Anya Taylor-Joy makes for a compelling Illyana Rasputin, presented as a victim of child slavery (and presumably rape) and she cuts a striking action figure in the films fantastical climax. None of the other kids (including Henry Zagas Roberto da Costa and Charlie Heatons Sam Guthrie), all of whom have done fine work elsewhere, make an impression. Braga barely allows her voice to rise above a whisper. And, Save for fleeting past-tense cameos, those six people are the only characters in the movie. The 90-minute flick consists of these five youngsters going through a standard TV pilot-style heroic awakening with the presumption that theyll be the marquee characters/heroes fans wanted to see in the next movie. Considering Dark Phoenixs failure and Disneys presumed intent to reboot X-Men into the existing MCU, this route is especially cruel.

Lacking marquee characters and existing as yet another feature-length prologue, The New Mutants fails as a teen melodrama and, partially because we know none of the core cast is in any permanent danger, fails as a horror movie. Whether it justifies itself as an X-Men movie is irrelevant since it is a very bad X-Men movie, the worst of the franchise by default. At least X-Men Origins: Wolverine had multiple locations, multiple characters and big-scale comic book action that resembled a trashy 1980s Cannon flick. New Mutants visuals are generally drab, and the few moments of fantastical color lit up the screen by comparison. Despite a refreshingly inclusive cast and a front-and-center same-sex romance, The New Mutants is like watching a lousy TV pilot for a show that you know didnt get picked up.

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Review: New Mutants Is The Worst X-Men Movie Ever - Forbes