The New Mutants

Tonight I saw “The New Mutants,” released back in August, and the final film of the “X-Men Franchise” produced by 20^th Century Fox before the merger with Disney. This is the film that no one knew if it was going to be released since this was delayed for the past two years. However, since this film was released on DVD and Blu-Ray today, I thought of checking it out as a rental since I didn't go see it in theaters because of the pandemic and is it as bad as people are saying it is?

Fear haunts this somewhat strange version on mutants, the 13^th and apparently final film in the “X-Men Franchise,” which finally was theatrically released after two years of delays and really separates itself from the whole franchise by keeping things really scary and contained. Emma Simmonds said in her review, “Working with co-screenwriter (and childhood pal) Knate Lee, writer-director Josh Boone delivers a heightened, horror-infused coming-of-ager, where budding supernatural prowess and past traumas trigger some serious adolescent angst.”

Despite supposedly a service for up-and-coming mutants, the setting is the type of rundown hospital building which rings serious alarm bells. Our Cheyenne heroine Dani/Mirage (Blu Hunt) is the only survivor of a horrifying, unexplained tragedy that’s glanced at the start, but tossed aside by Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) as the cause being a tornado. In a therapy group, Dani meets the other patients Rahne/Wolfsbane (Maisie Williams), Illyana/Magik (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam/Cannonball (Charlie Heaton) and Roberto/Sunspot (Henry Zaga), who differ so much in their friendliness, before things get really serious for everyone.

Simmonds said, “The horrific potential of super powers has been explored before, but rarely in an actually frightening way – last year's Brightburn being a rare and not particularly successful exception – and, with its play on teens-in-peril and asylum flicks, the set-up in The New Mutants is promising; there's the germ of a genuinely good idea here. But Boone doesn't do suspense or pack in enough scares (presumably he was constrained by the need to deliver a PG-13; here it's a 15, but a rather tame one) and the film's occasional over-earnestness ties it unwelcomely to his previous effort, the weepy The Fault in our Stars.”

If clips used from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is there to remind audiences how much this group film suffers with this comparisons, there are viewers of properly crucial material, not slightest when seeing a child abuse backstory, when there’s a lesbian love that looks like it will happen. The cast are rightly picked (it was right to select Williams and Taylor-Joy) and, with the gender balance tilting in favor of the girls, “The New Mutants” is a new look. Things may start a little slow but the film does pick up with strength, identity and interest, and those who have missed the big budget movies in theaters should find it nice to go there again.

To be completely honest, I don’t really agree with the hate that this film has been receiving. I think that this final film of the franchise was done decently and I would say to everyone who did not go to the theaters to see it can check it out as a rental. Don’t listen to the critics, just watch it and judge based on your own thoughts. You could say that this film is like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” meets “The Breakfast Club.” What’s surprising is that this film is short and goes by really fast that you don’t even know how much you have watched. Especially with only five young mutants in this film, everyone contributes their part equally. In my honest opinion, this was a decent, fine film to end off on and I will give this a 9. It's not one of the worse, or the worst in the franchise. There were talks about possibly making sequels to this film, but now it doesn’t look like that will happen. Now we need to see if Disney will somehow incorporate the X-Men into the MCU and how.

Thank you for joining in on my review tonight. Look out Friday for the continuation of “Jarhead Month.”