The New Mutants (2020)

2020 PG-13 94 Minutes

Five young mutants, just discovering their abilities while held in a secret facility against their will, fight to escape their past sins and save themselves.

Overall Rating

4 / 10

Verdict: So-So

User Review

d_riptide

5 / 10

For all the countless reshoots and delays and pushbacks and debacles that caused all the growing skepticism of “New Mutants” to escalate, I have to be one to admit that I would’ve cared a lot more about this film if it was released on its original release date. As is, even with the understandable circumstances involved.....I’m actually flabbergasted by how watchable this is. I’m not being sarcastic for the sake of it, guys: there actually is SOMETHING here but to me, the bad parts definitely outweigh what little good was unsheathed.

Acting was mostly mixed for me but I could tell they were all trying and playing off each other as well as they could; Anna Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams and Charlie Heaton were the legitimately impressive ones here. While the film wasn’t scary by any means, the tone and the atmosphere needed to supply that feeling is there, albeit loosely. Not to mention special effects were pretty sturdy throughout as well as the messages it tried to express for overcoming fear. This however is a list of potentially explosive ingredients rendered inert due to the movie constantly working against itself with how limited it is. Dialogue is really exposition heavy, the scenes feel really random and very spliced apart despite that being the fault of the pacing, the story is very straightforward, formulaic and predictable, I found some value in the characters presented but it doesn’t help that their characters check the boxes for typical clichéd stereotype #27 from The Breakfast Club and while seeds were certainly planted for an expansion beyond its Stephen King/M. Night Shyamalan-like set-up and production design (seriously, this whole premise reminded me of Glass and The Institute), the lack of originality and the lack of an extra thirty minutes prevented this modest premise from excelling this type of film up to the scale they wanted to make it on.

I heard that Fox was so disappointed with the original cut of the film, they almost tore it down and restarted from scratch......and understandably speaking, a part of me can’t blame them. In defense however, this is miles better than Dark Phoenix and it’s nowhere near the “Doomed from the start” portrait people wanted to paint it as but it fails to inherit a memorable personality in the process. Hopefully, someone can get enjoyment out of this three-and-a-half year long wait.

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