While it’s nothing spectacular, The New Mutants is a surprising and different addition to the X-Men universe that is perfectly acceptable to use as a first post-March movie theater visit.
After months on end in a cinema hiatus thanks to Mrs. ‘Rona, I was finally able to visit a Pennsylvania theater to see The New Mutants. I was super excited to see it, although most of that hype was most likely in anticipation of actually visiting a movie theater and not the actual movie I was seeing. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised when the newest addition to the X-Men universe took a turn in a new direction for a superhero film that ended up working really well with its dark plot and cast of misfit characters.
For years, superhero fans have complained that the X-Men saga has become repetitive and stale. The original trilogy had a cohesive plot from start to finish, but after multiple offshoots (The Wolverine, Dark Phoenix, Logan) and far too many time-traveling plots or prequels (Days of Future Past, First Class) the time-line was getting messy and confusing. Some brought up the possibility of scrapping the current X-Men plot completely and starting over, but I’m glad that The New Mutants was able to accomplish what so many of the previous films I mentioned earlier could not. While the film feels like an X-Men film, it doesn’t feel like a direct copy of any of the others or like it’s an unnecessary addition to the universe. The characters were different than what we had seen before and felt current to today’s time. And that transitions me into what I liked most about the film: the actual mutants.
For most movies with supernatural abilities, the powers are usually given very little or even no backstory. Sure, there might be a little side story about a spider-bite or becoming a billionaire orphan, but those (obviously) don’t feel very realistic. The New Mutants, however, took the time to give each of their characters a backstory that actually made sense. Without giving too much away, there are nods toward mental disorders such as DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) and PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) that would give a real, scientific basis in these made-up powers. That thread of realism throughout the film added a level of seriousness that made it stand out from other superhero films. The attention to detail and character arcs were well-done and I appreciated how much time was clearly spent on making it feel like a drama and less like an action film.
Although I liked many things about The New Mutants, it was by no means a perfect film. The color-pallet was bland and very dark, sometimes making things difficult to see. The finale was lackluster and was the one part that felt copy and pasted from another X-Men film. Some of the relationships seemed a bit forced and I didn’t love all of the choices they made for the characters. Even so, these minor nuisances didn’t detract too much from the movie and I ended up enjoying it all the same.
While it still feels weird doing something as normal as visiting a movie theater, The New Mutants is a good film to get you back on track. Even if you aren’t familiar with the comics of other X-Men films, it has an engaging plot that will keep you on the edge of your seat and wondering what other kinds of mutants could be among us.
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