The New Mutants (2020)

More and more lately discourse about movies has little to do with the actual movie and much more to do with how we expect the movie to be, then confirmation bias takes over, and everyone piles on. No one wants to be the outlier and disagree with the preordained opinion about a film. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. That appears to be what happened to The New Mutants, and interesting, atmospheric movie that is gripping, yet everyone decided was bad before they even saw it.

When 20th Century Fox was still around and still making X-men movies, they wanted to take the series in a new direction and start following new characters. The New Mutants, with a horror bent, was a route to do that. Director Josh Boone came up with a very different approach to the superhero genre, specifically the X-verse subgenre, and attempted to unleash it on the world. But studio politics, toxic online fans, and damn COVID, doomed the film to lengthy delays and the perception that it wasn't any good.

Which is all to bad cause it's actually not bad. I enjoyed The New Mutants. I felt it's exploration of trauma and healing was not only insightful but effecting. I also felt it was successfully scary, especially in light of the way the horror comes from within and overcoming it comes from learning to face our pasts, our mistakes, the ways we've been abused, and move through it together. New Mutants is queer and asks us to question what it is we are told to believe. Perhaps that's why so many react negatively to it.

Not The New Mutants is not perfect. The ending is a bit anti-climactic and sometimes the film is a bit more straight forward and predictable than it needs to be. But its flaws are minor. I think one of the biggest disappointments is the way the film sets up interesting interpretations of characters that we won't get to see return in follow up stories. There is a lot more to say here and now we won't get that.

The New Mutants
Starring: Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, Henry Zaga
Director: Josh Boone
Writers: Knate Lee, Josh Boone