The New Mutants (2020)
“This isn’t a hospital, Pocahontas. It’s a cage.” – Ilyana Rasputin
The New Mutants (2020)
Directed by: Josh Boone
Written by: Josh Boone, Knate Lee
Starring: Maise Williams, Ana Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Blu Hunt
The more movies I review, the more development horror stories I come across. The ridiculous production history of The New Mutants is well documented:
Greenlit by 20th Century Fox in 2015, the movie was pitched as a ‘Stephen King meets John Hughes’ horror version of the X-Men franchise.
However, the filming was bumped multiple times by Fox, with the company prioritising the Deadpool movies and X-Men: Apocalypse.
Fox then demanded multiple re-writes of the script, at times claiming it was ‘too scary’, and others stating that it ‘wasn’t scary enough’. Multiple characters were written in and out of the script, with actors dropping in and out of the production.
THEN, Disney acquired 20th Century Fox in March, 2019. This changed everything, as Disney very publically noted that the original cut had “limited box office potential,” demanding further reshoots. Different editors were brought in, special effects were added - it was a huge mess.
Then…COVID hit…bumping the release to late 2020 and crushing the box office returns. A $70 Million USD budget was only rewarded with $47 million in ticket stubs.
Vary rarely does a movie go through development hell and emerge as a good movie. This is no different here, with the final product a confusing mish-mash of ideas and characters.
The film focuses on Dani Moonstar (Hunt), a teenage girl who wakes up after an accident in a strange hospital run by the mysterious Dr. Reyes (Braga). Dani and the other four ‘gifted’ youngsters living in the hospital believe they are being trained to join the X-Men. However, with strange things happening and the five of them unable to leave, Dani realises that the hospital is more nefarious than she first thought.
If Deadpool is the ‘comedy’ version of the X-Men franchise, The New Mutants is the ‘young-adult/horror’ version. It’s an exciting concept, and something everyone was very excited about once the teaser trailers came out at Comic-Con. Fleshed out with a talented and popular young cast, it looked gritty and dark - like a fully-fledged horror movie. But unfortunately Fox got in their own way, and the combination of their indecision and the extensive delays for the project resulted in a disappointing and confusing final product.
Any negatives begin with the plot. On the surface it ticks a lot of boxes – the setting is creepy and the characters all flex their unique X-Men powers throughout. The hook of the film is meant to be the mystery behind Dani’s power – why was she brought to this facility, and what is Reyes’ motive? However, after the first fifteen minutes, the movie is one big, confusing complication. Nothing remotely exciting happens until the 65-minute mark, and it just seems like a messy series of directionless events. They try to shoe-horn in some romantic relationships between the kids, but it feels awkward and half-hearted - like the idea of a late-fifties exec asking, “This is what the kids today like…right?”
It’s a slow film for the most part, but annoyingly the writers don’t take advantage of these drawn-out scenes to provide us with…anything, really. There are no jump scares, no meaningful character development…nothing. And this is with a talented group of actors who have the range to impress, given the right material. When the big baddie finally emerges at the end of the film, it’s a disappointing conclusion, with any promise of a ‘horror’ twist succumbing to a more basic ‘young-adult superhero’ theme. Yet they still fail to take advantage of the mountain of X-Men intellectual property at their disposal, with no real links back to the franchise.
It’s hard to fault Boone for the failings of the final cut, with both Fox and Disney taking control of the project out of his hands. Reading through his interviews and rhetoric, it does seem like the initial concept for the film would have been a true horror story, incorporating well-known characters from the X-Men universe. It truly is a shame, because I’m all for the idea of a teenage X-Men crew, with powerful female characters and exciting new powers. Sad to say, but you should definitely skip this. Hard pass.
Rating: 4/10