The New Mutants originally had a release in mid-April 2018, but Fox’s transition factor to Disney and of course the pandemic changed its broadcast schedule until August 2020. The long delays and patchy issues in the production of the film certainly gave bad expectations. Is that bad? You could say so.
The New Mutants is the 13th and final series of the X-Men Franchise since two decades ago, which means it is still in the same universe with X-Men, Logan, and Deadpool. Then where is the position of the story of this film? In previous stories, it was mentioned how the government (or a third party) tried to cultivate these young mutants to become trained killers. The story of this film is a case in point of this plot. As we all know, Charles Xavier educates young mutants with love and warmth like family, while the story of this film is quite the opposite.
Five young mutants with various strengths were held in one old facility with only ONE supervisor, namely Dr Reyes. Somehow this facility works with only one employee to train these young mutants to control their power. It wasn’t until the recruit, Dani, a traumatic young girl who turned out to be a big disaster for all residents of the facility. There are no significant surprises and something new from the story aspect.
The exploration of horror in the superhero genre feels very awkward. There is no jump scare or horror nuance at all. The action scenes, which use a lot of CGI, feel very artificial, unequal to the other X-Men series. One thing that is new to the genre is the use of limited settings and minimal character. One other surprising thing is the insertion of LGBT stories that are presented “rather extreme” and are not shy anymore for the genre. The characters are mostly immigrants and Native Americans (Indians). If this is intended as an anti-Trump metaphor, the urgency was not to be felt. The casts do their job well, except for the script, which is easy to anticipate.
As expected and the long delay, The New Mutants has interesting exploration for its genre. Still, unfortunately, it does not have a strong ambition to provide a new injection for the genre. For the series, this film is the ending that was expected to be bad from the start. Even under normal conditions, it seems impossible for this film to be a commercial success which is said to reach U$ 80 million budget. The X-Men series has now ended and is waiting to be “revived” through the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). We’ll see what kind of refreshment we’ll see for the X-Men characters. So far, the MCU has never slipped in inserting its new character.
Stay safe and Healthy!
