New Mutants

[Mordar]

Hi all -

I have really enjoyed my local theater being open again. My wife and I have been to 3 movies (Tenet, Empire, New Mutants) and have not had more than 8 people total in any showing. Feel safe, and frankly would pay quadruple to have the same experience on a regular basis.

We saw New Mutants last week...both give it a thumbs up, mine stronger than hers. She felt it a little slow at the beginning, and that is true, but once it hit the second/third act transition it picked up nicely. I think it rates in the top 2 of the X-men franchise (faint praise, I know), despite the delays, reworking and studio disinterest.

The acting was probably the weakest element, but it wasn't terrible. Yes, bad accents are bad. Effects were generally decent...visuals at times VERY good. The characterizations weren't exactly as I might like, but that's okay. I was a bigtime X-title guy since the list of X-titles was 1 entry, so I carry a lot of baggage and expectations. The non-spoilery version of my review is: Very enjoyable to me as a fan of the New Mutants comics who also understands that movies aren't made like comics. I am disappointed there will not be a sequel, and not even likely a reboot.

Spoiler: A few specifics

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I liked Dani and Sam best (from an acting standpoint), but feel Sam really got shorted on the power side. All things considered, only Dani and Illyana get a lot of power display time. Dani's powers, while uncontrolled, start at a much higher potency than in the books. Sam shows clear signs of significant physical harm (broken arm, bruises/black eye) that didn't quite track for me, and doesn't use his powers much beyond a strange tether-ball like training scene. Roberto was barely there, and I didn't like the power side-effect. Illyana and Rahne are pretty close to the power levels I recall, and effects were decent. Loved the way they incorporated Lockheed. Illanya was too adversarial, and I didn't like the clear abuse scenario - wanted the "Colossus' little sister who grew up in Limbo in 10 minutes of earth time" angle, but it wouldn't fit with the rest of the story. Liked that they kept most of Rahne's personality intact, even if she is older than originally introduced.

The facility should have been nicer if they wanted us to believe there was any chance it was X-affiliated...but if we were supposed to be in the know the whole time, it was fine because it made it creepier. The movie really does present as a teen quasi-horror film, and it is quickly clear that the kids aren't there for their own best interests but as prisoners of some nefarious purpose. We get close enough to the characters to care, but not sure there's ever full investment in any beyond Dani and Illyana. Even Rahne is primarily there as a vehicle for Dani. Still, good groundwork and potential. Sadly, no sinister mid- or post-credit scene.

Hope people get out and support the effort!

- M

[Tyndmyr]

I wanted to like it, but that third act was really weak. It felt as if it was made on a *very* tight budget, given the single location and extremely limited number of actors, and that hurt it some. It really needed some more bad guys.

There's some good ideas there, and one or two of the concepts felt as if they could be developed into something properly scary, but overall it didn't have quite enough content to fill the runtime.

Granted, it's literally just this and Tenent in the theaters at the moment. So, after you've seen the other film, this is all that's left. I am definitely with you on supporting the theaters, particularly when there are so few people there.

[Ramza00]

Read today’s New Mutant comics 13 today, and I am scarred.

[Mordar]

I wanted to like it, but that third act was really weak. It felt as if it was made on a *very* tight budget, given the single location and extremely limited number of actors, and that hurt it some. It really needed some more bad guys.

I believe there were some handwaves and shortcuts...and maybe it was influenced by those other off-brand "teen supers/horror" crossovers, and that might have hurt it.

I think it had small budget feel, but I'm seeing that it might have been in the $65-90M range. That makes me feel a little more disappointment, because I had viewed it as a sub-$40M effort.

- M

[Tyndmyr]

It apparently suffered in development hell for many years, and apparently had reshoots* and stuff. It started getting made in 2014, which might explain why they've burned so much cash to turn out something that looks a lot lower budget.

*Well, maybe. Some people talked about it, others denied this, and it appears ludicrously confusing.

[Rogar Demonblud]

It sounds like there were some reshoots, but they were largely discarded by Disney after the purchase in the name of just getting the darn thing out the door.

[tomandtish]

It apparently suffered in development hell for many years, and apparently had reshoots* and stuff. It started getting made in 2014, which might explain why they've burned so much cash to turn out something that looks a lot lower budget.

*Well, maybe. Some people talked about it, others denied this, and it appears ludicrously confusing.

Yeah, it was a movie that was originally supposed to be released in 2018. So it was almost 2 years late before Covid became a major issue. That never speaks well for a movie.

[Giggling Ghast]

I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't say it was a good movie. I guess I liked elements of the film and disliked others — for instance, Magik's powers were fun and cool-looking but I couldn't understand half her dialogue because of that thick Russian accent.

[Mordar]

I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't say it was a good movie.

I can understand this...I think the former is far more important than the latter, at least insofar as it wasn't a "so bad it is good" kind of enjoyment.

- M

[GrayDeath]

I found it...OK.

On the one hand, I always like different looks on Supers (and especially the XMen universe, I liked the Gifted a lot as well), on the other hand, one can see where changes where made to NOT include it in the latest X-Movies, and I for one cant stand "Aria" any more. ^^

It still clearly beat Apocalypse (we dont talk about Phoenix^^), and so its not bad.

[Palanan]

So, New Mutants is finally available to rent, and I jumped on it.

The result…well, I didn’t have very high expectations, so I was able to enjoy it. But I’m glad I didn’t take the risk of a movie theater just to see this one.

Spoiler

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I started reading New Mutants when it first came out, so I grew up with the core characters. The first mildly pleasant surprise is that the movie managed to hit most of the characters reasonably well. Maisie Williams was perfect as Rahne, Dani Moonstar was fine, and while I was expecting Sam to be taller than ‘Berto, they were decent renditions, if rather one-dimensional.

Illyana hit the look exactly, but otherwise not nearly so close to the character I remember. Lockheed was a nice touch; I’m just sorry we didn’t see any Bamfs. I also wish they could’ve included Xi’an Coy Manh, but apart from the added complexity her powers could have rendered the whole movie moot.

The movie definitely has a low-budget sensibility: minimal sets, minimal actors (though Alice Braga and Maisie Williams probably weren’t cheap) and fewer special effects than most mutant movies. I’m most disappointed in the truncated runtime, not even 90 minutes of story, and a fairly thin one at that.

Since I grew up with the characters, there was zero tension for me as to the cause of all the phantoms and spookiness. “It’s Dani, get on with it,” was my thought for most of the movie. The tie-in with Logan was…okay, but I’m not sure why it was necessary, and I’m not sure why they wanted to go for the lockdown approach in general. It ended up being the least effective of both worlds: suffocating to the story, but not claustrophobic enough to create any real tension. It also seemed extremely contrived that the “patients” couldn’t leave, when Ilya is a teleporter and by rights should be able to travel through Limbo to boot.

And that might be why they so radically changed Ilya and Limbo—giving her a truly awful and unnecessary backstory, and changing Limbo from an actual place into…what, exactly? I’m not sure what Limbo is supposed to be here—but if she can move in and out of it at will, I really don’t see how she can’t come out on the other side of Reyes’ barrier.

And Ilya’s implicit backstory is unfortunate in other ways, since it ends up almost trivializing the trauma for the sake of some low-grade spookiness that reminded me more of Miss Peregrine’s School. The Ilya I remember wasn’t nearly so antagonistic towards other students, and here she’s almost a caricature of the bad girl/class bully.

I’m also not in favor of the almost casual decision everyone makes to kill Dr. Reyes. I know people laugh at heroism these days, but I still want heroes who behave like it, and the New Mutants I grew up with wouldn’t have so easily agreed to it. Fight, yes, but killing her is a line the mutants should have had far more difficulty crossing, if at all.

What would have worked much better, I think, is for a slightly larger class with several new characters who could serve as antagonists, in a different setting altogether—maybe not Xavier’s school, but some other institution attempting to copy the X-Men. As others have noted, the movie needed more villains—and who better than Emma Frost at the Massachusetts Academy? But we’ve already had different and incompatible versions of Emma Frost in various movies, and one more wouldn’t have helped—even if her headmistress persona was the one I liked the most.

On the whole, it was at least a decent introduction to the characters, and it would have made a tolerable pilot for a series. Sadly, any such series would be almost impossible to make now, given the ill repute of the X-Franchise, and the fact that the cast have long since scattered to the winds. Creating a series would require a new cast and new introduction, and I doubt anyone has the interest in that. So this will have to do, and while it's not outstanding, it's a decent little ride.