The New Mutants – Nice Dark Addition to the Franchise
Director: Josh Boone
Writer: Josh Boone, Knate Lee (Screenplay)
Starring: Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Brage, Blue Hunt, Henry Zaga
Plot: 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.
Tagline – There is something new to fear.
Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The New Mutants starts when Dani Moonstar (Hunt) escapes from a disaster, which will see her awaken in a hospital run by Dr Reyes (Braga), Dani joins the rest of the patients, religious Rahne Sinclair (Williams), bad girl Illyana Rasputin (Taylor-Joy), small town boy Sam Guthrie (Heaton) and playboy Roberto da Costa (Zaga), in a hospital, where the five are learning to control their powers before returning to the world.
As Dani spends more time in the hospital, she finds herself and the other patients needing to face the demons which have caused their power to come out, forcing them into a deadly situation.
Thoughts on The New Mutants
Characters & Performances – Dani Moonstar has seen her whole family killed in an incident, seeing her admitted to a small hospital with four other young people, here she must first look to fit in with the other young people, before learning to control her powers, which will see her becoming the main target, as she learns about her own powers. Blu Hunt in this role, does give us the role which is the introduction to this world. Rahna Sinclair is the shy religious patient, she helps Dani fit in around the hospital, being the friend, she needs, while dealing with her own past, which is why she is there in the first place. Maisie Williams does give this character the calmness and difference to the Anya Taylor-Joy flirty figure. Illyana Rasputin is the bad girl of the group, she isn’t as welcoming of Dani and wants to keep her secrets away from the rest, her powers are the most interesting and the one you want to see more off in the future. Anya Taylor-Joy does the acting part of the film well, adding all the mystery to her character, only her accent slips in and out through the film. Sam and Roberto complete the patients line up, both seem to be very similar in how they both want to stay away from anyone, brooding more than anything else. Both Charlie Heaton and Henry Zaga do well in this role without getting the big moment the women seem to. Dr Reyes is running the hospital, seemingly on her own, she tries to friend the patients, while trying to guide them to unleash their powers. Alice Braga does bring the friendly persona to this role well, but struggles with her characters true side.
Story – The story here follows a teenager that survivors an incident that will see her heading to a hospital with other young people, each with their own traumas, a place where they are prepared to see what their powers can do to the world, until they start suffering horrific nightmares. While this story might well have gone through development nightmares, it does bring a fresh approach to an X-Men movie, showing us just how dark the world could be for young mutants, who are only just learning about their powers, under the wrong people and need to learn to harness their powers. We do get to dive into the history of what has driven the youngster to this location, showing just how they never knew what to do with what happened. The format of the story is everything you would expect from a horror, where things slowly start getting worse for the characters too.
Themes – The New Mutants takes us to the singular location of the hospital, looking to use this to show the containment the characters find themselves in, we get a lot of horror elements here with the character’s greatest fears coming to life, which each one looking more terrifying as the levels intensify. When it comes to the main big fight, we get a clever creation for Illyana’s skills, which is easily the most interesting part of the film.
The New Mutants is an entertaining spin on the X-Men franchise, bringing us the horror we needed away from the glamour action.
