Pros: an attempt to film a dark story about mutants; young actors familiar from other projects; dynamics of events towards the denouement Cons: quite a lot of techniques from other films that do not work here The New Mutants / The New Mutants
Genre fantasy, comics
Director Josh Boone
Starring: Maisie Williams (Rahne Sinclair), Anya Taylor-Joy (Ulyana Rasputina), Charlie Heaton (Sam Guthrie), Blu Hunt (Daniella Moonstar), Henry Zaga (Bobby da Costa), Alice Braga (Dr. Cecilia Reyes), etc.
Студии 20th Century Studios, Marvel Entertainment, Genre Films
Year of release 2020
IMDb website
The first trailer for The New Mutants appeared in 2017, when the film attracted interest due to its young cast and dark genre slant, uncharacteristic of the X-Men universe. The audience was announced a teenage horror film, the action of which takes place in a closed room. Quite unusual, considering that Marvel is usually expected to produce large-scale superhero action films.
Josh Boone, who previously released the teen drama The Fault in Our Stars, took on the task of staging such an experiment. He shouldered the work of the director and also wrote the film’s script himself. In an interview, Boone said that his goal is to place mutant heroes in a darker atmosphere, close to the works of Stephen King. Moreover, the director focused on specific films, citing as examples the films One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. .
Apparently, Josh Boone’s expectation and reality were far from each other. Rumors began to appear around The New Mutants about the need to reshoot the finished material, which did not turn out very well. In addition, the film’s release was shifted from 2018 to 2019 so that it would not coincide with more important Marvel premieres. Well, then there were big changes at the top – the Walt Disney Company acquired the assets of 21st Century Fox, which also affected the premiere schedule. And when The New Mutants finally hit the spring 2020 schedule, the world was faced with a pandemic.
And finally, in September, The New Mutants made it to the big screen. They’ve been at it for so long that even the most dedicated Marvel fans have lost interest since the release of the first trailer. To be honest, we shouldn’t have expected anything great from this film, nor should we have associated it with other X-Men films. Of course, for the plot connection there are references to an organization familiar to us, but otherwise the young mutants were left on their own – without the appearance of iconic characters.
The film takes place in a closed hospital. There, after a strong tornado, the main character Daniella wakes up. The first person she sees after waking up is Dr. Cecilia, who claims that the girl has powers, and from now on she must learn to control them. Four more mutant teenagers live here, whom Daniella learns about during general therapy sessions. Not all of them are complacent, but no one has a choice – patients are obliged to obey the doctor’s strict rules.
Daniella’s character is a representative of the Cheyenne Indian tribe, so the girl knows the legend that inside every person there are two bears: one of them feeds on happy emotions, while the other grows out of fear, shame and self-destruction. In addition to the fantastic line of the film, this becomes the main idea about the difficult choice that every person has to make, gradually realizing themselves in adolescence.
Seizing on the theme of self-identity, director Josh Boone focuses on the torment of youth and rebellious characters. Each character in the film is haunted by personal fears (which at some point begins to resemble the idea of Stephen King from It), but they are not able to scare the viewer. There is no real atmosphere of horror here, but there are attempts to repeat techniques from other films.
In many ways, Josh Boone lacks the subtlety in storytelling that even movies about superpowers should have. When something is about to happen to the characters, Boone very clumsily hints at it with long passages from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which the mutants watch in their free time. It turns out not to be a folding reference, but rather a bold running line, placed on the entire screen.
Of the young cast, no one particularly pleases with their performance; they all continue to be associated with more successful projects – Maisie Williams with Game of Thrones, Anya Taylor-Joy with the film Split, Charlie Heaton with the TV series Stranger Things, and Henry Zaga with the series 13 Reasons Why.
Despite this, the film cannot be called a complete failure; it just shouldn’t be associated with other Marvel films. This is a simple teenage story that revolves around the personal fears of the characters. Towards the denouement, the picture even becomes interesting, and the mutants show their powers (although it is in these scenes that it is clearly visible how small the budget of the film was).
Conclusion:
A teen drama director might not be the best choice to direct a Marvel movie.
