SEPT 7, 2020 SCREENING: The New Mutants (2020)
“The best film I’ve seen in theaters in months!” came one of the tongue-in-cheek reviews of The New Mutants, referencing the obvious fact that it’s been months since we HAVE been able to see a film in theaters. Joking aside, my reaction to The New Mutants is actually pretty similar to the LAST film I viewed on the big screen – Dolittle (the Robert Downey Jr. remake), from Jan. 2020. Dolittle was a long delayed, clever premise to breathe life into an old tired franchise, and sadly opened to scathing reviews and poor box office results – even though everyone I knew who saw the film in theaters came away very pleased and thought it was fun and very entertaining. Eight months later, post Coronavirus lockdown, I am feeling a strong sense of Déjà vu.
The New Mutants isn’t the BEST X-Men movie by far, but neither is it the “worst” one. Indeed, it is 10X better than the actual “worst” X-Men film, which was the most recent installment prior to this one: Dark Phoenix (2019), which was well deserving of a few Razzie nominations. My opinion MIGHT be tainted by the fact that Dark Phoenix is the only X-Men film I truly considered to be “bad” – previous installments that received much scorn, like X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) or X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) were “flawed but fun” in my book. The New Mutants is superior to those entries for perhaps one major reason alone: it actually lives up to its title promising to give us a brand new take on the world of mutantkind in the X-Men universe.
One review aptly described The New Mutants as “The Breakfast Club, if it was a horror movie, and set in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men universe”. Indeed. Throw in a bit of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for the film’s setting and tone, and you’ve got a pretty good idea what you’re getting into if you screen this movie.
The five characters (all mutants with superpowers who are locked away at some kind of “mental health” institute against their will) are all newcomers to the X-Men cinematic universe, with the exception of Sunspot, who has previously been portrayed as a much older character X-Men: Days of Future Past. There have been some allegations about “whitewashing” the character, and I’m not seeing a valid argument. Yes, Sunspot is Brazilian in the comics, and he is played by a non-hispanic actor here. But the actor can certainly “pass” for being Hispanic, and the ACTUAL Hispanic actor (Adan Canto) who played the role in the latter film wasn’t much “darker” skin toned than this guy. Brazilians come in all colors, so I fail to see the problem here. The remaining characters are “Magik”, Illyana Rasputin, who is the sister of major X-Men character Colossus, which oddly doesn’t even get a mention here, let alone a cameo from the character (odd choice, since they used Colossus to tie Deadpool into the X-Men universe), “Cannonball”, a.k.a. Sam Guthie, who has some pretty awesome powers and is played by one of the Stranger Things actors, Rahne Sinclair (“Wolfsbane” in the comics), a devout Catholic from Scotland who apparently is a closeted werewolf of sorts. Finally, there is the main protagonist, Dani Moonstar, who is suffering from survivor’s guilt when her entire Native American reservation was wiped out (apparently as a result of her mutant powers gone wrong) and she is the lone survivor.
The interaction between these characters, and their “therapist”, Dr. Cecilia Reyes (portrayed by Alice Braga as a Nurse Ratched type character) is what really gives the movie its moxie. It’s a bit similar to the first X-Men movie, as it comes across as a low-budget, midnight-move type experience with all the actors having to do odd accents outside of their actual origins, and having a cramped, claustrophobic type feel. There are a lot of twists and turns along the way – some characters we assume are “evil” actually turn out otherwise, and many characters have a hidden secret we learn along the way that makes us think differently about them.
One element that I would be negligent if I avoided mentioning it is a surprise romantic twist. The X-Men films have long been cited as allegory for the “gay rights” movement (which is somewhat true, although the “mutants” in each movie can pretty much serve as stand-ins for any real life “persecuted” group the audience members identify with). In the case of this film however, we have what appears to the first and ONLY example of an ACTUAL same sex relationship in an X-Men movie. I found it a bit “awkward” that the film went in that direction, but I have to give them brownie points for two reasons: 1) The relationship was actually “organic” – the characters HADN’T been advertised as lesbians prior to the film’s release, and the characters going down that road sort of made sense in the context of their background and the storyline (TV shows like Star Trek Discovery should have their “showrunners” locked in a room and FORCED to watch movies like this endlessly until they understand the difference between organic diversity vs. forced, shoehorned-in, “diversity”), 2) The girl-on-girl romance was tastefully handled – again, no need for graphic, full-frontal nudity or over the top sex scenes just to be “edgy” and do it just for the sake of earning an “R” rating. Heck, it could probably even make PG rated territory if we were judging the film solely on personal intimacy moments.
Overall, however, what makes The New Mutants really work is the characters were pretty faithful to their original comic boo k origin stories, while at the same time the film really succeeded in being a totally DIFFERENT kind of “X-Men” movie, while still officially set in the same universe as previous X-Men installments. What makes me especially sad is the film’s ending left it wide open for a sequel and “another installment” set after this one, and gave them endless possibilities where they could go next. I was forward to a whole series of “horror themed” X-Men movies, which could have been its own little “dark” corner of the X-Men franchise, in much the same way that Deadpool was technically an “X-Men” movie but its own animal of wink-to-the-audience over-the-top, ultra-violent, parody films.
With Disney swallowing up 20th Century Fox and formally terminating this franchise, I guess that means this truly is the last X-Men movie as we know it. And that’s a damn shame. After Dark Phoenix seemingly killed off any future for X-Men movies, this one was a nice recovery.
*** out of ****
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