The New MutantsEverybody knows that growing up doesn't come with a handbook. Adolescence brings unique challenges and each person has to confront their respective demons in the journey from childhood to adulthood. Adding mysterious and dangerous elements--like mutant superpowers--only make things all the more challenging. The New Mutants is a sci-fi/horror "superhero" movie about a young collective of disparate youths who are "sequestered" away in a remote hospital where they are told that they are there "for their own good", to master their unfamiliar and dangerous powers. But what should be a sanctuary soon evolves into a deadly powder keg waiting to explode.
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The New Mutants features Danielle "Dani" Moonstar (Blu Hunt) as the young protagonist, a Native American (Cheyenne) girl displaced from her reservation after some unseen entity appears to destroy it, kill her father (Adam Beach), and leave her unconscious in the wilderness. Afterward, she wakes up handcuffed to a hospital bed by Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga), who informs Dani that she--and others like her--are being kept isolated to train them to learn how to better use their abilities, and then be "offered" a position among a prominent team of other superheroic mutants, which evidently is referring to the X-Men. In other words, The New Mutants was intended to exist within the X-Men cinematic universe originally, and the production of this movie began in 2017. However, during that time, Disney acquired Fox (who had the rights to the X-Men movie rights), and a series of reshoots, delays, and so forth resulted in the movie being delayed until 2020. Subsequently, the place of The New Mutants as a continuing part of either superhero "universe" is unclear. But despite this, placing this moving within that framework helps to alleviate some of the need to clarify just what a "mutant" is, or what to expect from the special powers that these characters possess. For example, Dr. Reyes herself is a mutant, who can generate impenetrable forcefields, which she uses in part to keep Dani and her colleagues from leaving the grounds of the hospital, making it clear that fundamentally they are prisoners. Dr. Reyes cites a "superior" as the one pulling her strings and guiding her monitoring and "therapy" of the kids, but she deliberately has echoes of a character like Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Similar to that film, The New Mutants feels constantly like a tug of war between that adolescent urge for self-discovery and a stifling sense of control and restraint.
Dani does not find much support from anyone at the hospital at first. Dr. Reyes is cold and aloof, feigning a kind of passive softness that feels sterile and clinical instead of authentically heartfelt. When Dani joins a group therapy session in progress, she meets the other "new mutants", half of whom are openly hostile toward her despite her lingering grief at losing her family. The first person to reach out to her is a shy and reserved young girl named Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), who literally talks her off of the ledge and shows her around her new home. Rahne comes from a strict Catholic upbringing, and it becomes clear that she was made to feel ashamed of her mutant powers; she was even literally branded to identify her as a "witch", a la "The Scarlet Letter". Rahne also harbors an attraction to Dani, and their bond becomes crucial for helping Dani coming to understand her as-of-yet unclear superpower. But the first person to identify Dani's unique and dangerous power is Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is essentially the "bully" of the group, who openly teases and mocks Dani seemingly for her own amusement. Illyana herself has a painful past that she conceals behind bitterness and cruelty, and is the most openly rebellious of the batch. Along with Rahne and Illyana are Samuel "Sam" Guthrie (Charlie Heaton) and Roberto "Berto" da Costa (Henry Zaga), who both have their own painful pasts which have led them to Dr. Reyes's institution. In short, all of the "new mutants" have painful pasts which they at first believe isolates them from their peers, but in fact becomes the foundation to bind them together. And these painful pasts start emerging in a tangible way after Dani's appearance at the hospital, where those terrors that they experienced as they first discovered their mutant powers haunt and even attack them directly. And Dr. Reyes begins to suspect that Dani's psionic manifestations may be something that simply cannot be controlled.
Many "superhero" movies seem to embody a certain style of fantastic adventure and action, like the X-Men movies or The Avengers. The New Mutants, however, makes a deliberate step at downplaying superheroics and costumes and instead tells the story of Dani and the others as a mix of a coming-of-age story along with pronounced elements of horror. There are plenty of jump scares and supernatural elements lurking in the dark here. One of the most unsettling of these are "The Smiley Men" which haunt Illyana's nightmares. When these lanky and deformed figures start manifesting in the hospital, the otherwise unflappable and cynical Illyana is all but paralyzed with fear at being forced to relive the abuse of her childhood. The New Mutants fundamentally borrows its plot from one of the earliest story arcs of its source material, the comic series from the early Eighties which shared the same name. Interestingly, much of the set direction and costuming in The New Mutants appears to place the film at some point in the Nineties, including a couple of instances of the characters watching episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on a CRT television. This is consistent with a series of X-Men "soft reboot" movies starting with X-Men: First Class which began spanning through the decades with each iteration. The New Mutants also feels like a film of that era (or shortly before or after) in tone and style as well, which is novel for a superhero movie anymore. For example, the sense of dread and mysterious happenings juxtaposed with adolescent anxiety and an awareness of the artifice of adult guardians is reminiscent of Donnie Darko. And the knowing nod to "Buffy" is especially pointed, since the charismatic blossoming team of young warriors against evil forces has a diverse set of characters that share similarities with characters from that show, or even Joss Whedon's "Firefly". (Rahne takes a pointed interest in the character Willow and her character's sexual awakening, for example.) It might even be said that The New Mutants could be described as a cross between The Breakfast Club and A Nightmare on Elm Street. The five teens are kept in a claustrophobic environment where personalities clash, and they are forced to identify with one another, and subsequently learn that they have much more in common than they could have suspected...all while having to combat their worst traumas made manifest.
Recommended for: Fans of supernatural thrillers set within the framework of a superhero world. The New Mutants is a surprising kind of movie, and I would recommend it to people who feel like superhero movies are "all the same", since this movie--while not perfect--is at least creative and relatable; who hasn't had to deal with the traumas of adolescence after all?
Dani does not find much support from anyone at the hospital at first. Dr. Reyes is cold and aloof, feigning a kind of passive softness that feels sterile and clinical instead of authentically heartfelt. When Dani joins a group therapy session in progress, she meets the other "new mutants", half of whom are openly hostile toward her despite her lingering grief at losing her family. The first person to reach out to her is a shy and reserved young girl named Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), who literally talks her off of the ledge and shows her around her new home. Rahne comes from a strict Catholic upbringing, and it becomes clear that she was made to feel ashamed of her mutant powers; she was even literally branded to identify her as a "witch", a la "The Scarlet Letter". Rahne also harbors an attraction to Dani, and their bond becomes crucial for helping Dani coming to understand her as-of-yet unclear superpower. But the first person to identify Dani's unique and dangerous power is Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is essentially the "bully" of the group, who openly teases and mocks Dani seemingly for her own amusement. Illyana herself has a painful past that she conceals behind bitterness and cruelty, and is the most openly rebellious of the batch. Along with Rahne and Illyana are Samuel "Sam" Guthrie (Charlie Heaton) and Roberto "Berto" da Costa (Henry Zaga), who both have their own painful pasts which have led them to Dr. Reyes's institution. In short, all of the "new mutants" have painful pasts which they at first believe isolates them from their peers, but in fact becomes the foundation to bind them together. And these painful pasts start emerging in a tangible way after Dani's appearance at the hospital, where those terrors that they experienced as they first discovered their mutant powers haunt and even attack them directly. And Dr. Reyes begins to suspect that Dani's psionic manifestations may be something that simply cannot be controlled.
Many "superhero" movies seem to embody a certain style of fantastic adventure and action, like the X-Men movies or The Avengers. The New Mutants, however, makes a deliberate step at downplaying superheroics and costumes and instead tells the story of Dani and the others as a mix of a coming-of-age story along with pronounced elements of horror. There are plenty of jump scares and supernatural elements lurking in the dark here. One of the most unsettling of these are "The Smiley Men" which haunt Illyana's nightmares. When these lanky and deformed figures start manifesting in the hospital, the otherwise unflappable and cynical Illyana is all but paralyzed with fear at being forced to relive the abuse of her childhood. The New Mutants fundamentally borrows its plot from one of the earliest story arcs of its source material, the comic series from the early Eighties which shared the same name. Interestingly, much of the set direction and costuming in The New Mutants appears to place the film at some point in the Nineties, including a couple of instances of the characters watching episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on a CRT television. This is consistent with a series of X-Men "soft reboot" movies starting with X-Men: First Class which began spanning through the decades with each iteration. The New Mutants also feels like a film of that era (or shortly before or after) in tone and style as well, which is novel for a superhero movie anymore. For example, the sense of dread and mysterious happenings juxtaposed with adolescent anxiety and an awareness of the artifice of adult guardians is reminiscent of Donnie Darko. And the knowing nod to "Buffy" is especially pointed, since the charismatic blossoming team of young warriors against evil forces has a diverse set of characters that share similarities with characters from that show, or even Joss Whedon's "Firefly". (Rahne takes a pointed interest in the character Willow and her character's sexual awakening, for example.) It might even be said that The New Mutants could be described as a cross between The Breakfast Club and A Nightmare on Elm Street. The five teens are kept in a claustrophobic environment where personalities clash, and they are forced to identify with one another, and subsequently learn that they have much more in common than they could have suspected...all while having to combat their worst traumas made manifest.
Recommended for: Fans of supernatural thrillers set within the framework of a superhero world. The New Mutants is a surprising kind of movie, and I would recommend it to people who feel like superhero movies are "all the same", since this movie--while not perfect--is at least creative and relatable; who hasn't had to deal with the traumas of adolescence after all?