THE NEW MUTANTS (2020)
The New Mutants takes place in the X-Men film universe with a young Native American girl, Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt), being admitted to a clinic for young mutants. She’s there with four other youths, Illyana (Anya Taylor-Joy), Rahne (Maisie Williams), Sam (Charlie Heaton) and Roberto (Henry Zaga), under the “treatment” of Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga). They initially think they are being taught to control their mutant abilities to become X-Men, but when their fears and inner pains begin to manifest against them, they unite under the belief that there is a more sinister purpose in store for them.
Flick is directed by Josh Boone from his script with Knate Lee. Initial shooting supposedly ended in 2017 and then the film spent three years in post production hell with a lot of tinkering and reshoots. As such, the result is basically A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, meets The X-Men and not nearly as fun or interesting as that sounds. It’s not really a bad film, though it’s not an overly good one either. We’ve seen the X-Men elements done better in those movies and if you’ve seen ANOES 3, there really isn’t much new here on that front either. The characters are a bit cliché, but the cast is good, with Blu Hunt making a likable lead and heroine as Dani, and Braga making a suitable villain as Dr. Reyes. The FX are well done, the hospital location atmospheric and there is some effective action and violence. After a somewhat more grounded first half, the climax does get a little bloated and overloaded and comes quite close to getting silly. The flick tries to be a bit more of a horror movie than a comic book movie, but it is still a PG-13 one, once all is said and done. All in all, it’s an entertaining enough 94 minutes, if there is nothing else to watch, but nothing memorable or impactful. A lackluster end to the 20th Century Fox film series, as now Disney and Marvel have the rights to the X-Men, and they’ll be joining the MCU at some point.
-MonsterZero NJ
MonsterZero NJ's Movie Madhouse 