In the end, the most notable thing about Josh Boone’s The New Mutants won’t be anything in particular about the film, but rather that it was delayed a bunch of times. Originally scheduled for release in April 2018, the film was constantly pushed back until it was dumped in the middle of a pandemic in August 2020, but those decisions don’t seem to be because of anything particularly notable in the film itself. Boone had a clear idea for what he wanted—a PG-13 horror film that’s also a coming-of-age story within the X-Men universe—but the execution of that idea never really comes alive despite the strong cast. Instead, The New Mutants exists as an odd footnote in 20th Century Fox’s control of the X-Men franchise and will likely go down as a curio for X-Men die-hards only.
After her town is destroyed by mysterious forces, Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) awakens in a mysterious facility. She’s told by the facility’s doctor, Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga), that she and the four other patients—Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), and Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga)—are new mutants, but because they’re new mutants, their powers are more dangerous and harder to control. Once they learn to master their powers, they’ll go on to Xavier’s School for Gifted Mutants and eventually become X-Men. However, as the patients learn more about the facility, they realize that Reyes’ claims aren’t entirely truthful, and that they’re in serious danger from Dani’s emerging powers.
The concept of moving X-Men into the mold of a horror story is a smart one, but PG-13 horror is notoriously difficult, and Boone doesn’t have much success with it. The idea of Dani accidentally awakening the deepest fears in her fellow patients leads to various horror set pieces, but they’re just not all that scary. We know that these characters aren’t going to die or be seriously harmed, so there’s not much in the way of stakes. The characters find the situation scary, but that fear never carries over the audience, especially since these characters have, you know, superpowers. That makes for a lot of scenes where a character gets spooked by some CGI thing, and then the story continues without really building the tension.
The New Mutants is more successful as a coming-of-age story where Boone is able to lean into the anger, self-harm, and sadness that comes with being a teenager. The X-Men movies, and really most superhero stories, haven’t really been about being young and feeling out of control, and yet mutation—the key element of the X-Men stories—has always been tied to puberty. They’re stories about getting more powerful and not knowing how to control that power, and in these moments, The New Mutants feels like it has a stronger understanding of the X-Men universe than any previous X-Men movie.
But even here, The New Mutants struggles as it’s trying to do its horror movie thing to little success. It feels like the film would be stronger if it ditched the horror angle entirely and simply leaned into the emotional stakes like Rahne and Dani’s burgeoning romance or Sam’s tendency towards self-harm or Illyana’s anger as she pushes others away. Once you start trying to bring in demon bears or Reyes’ nefarious motives, you’re more in the realm of a typical superhero movie rather than playing to the strengths of what your cast and characters are giving you.
I was never bored by The New Mutants, but it’s a movie that constantly shows untapped potential. A superhero horror movie about puberty seems perfectly suited for an X-Men story, and yet for whatever reason—whether it was behind-the-scenes issues or Boone never quite wrangling the tone he was going for—it never clicks into place like it should. It’s perfectly suitable for curious viewers looking to give it a quick spin on a streaming service but actively seeking it out is solely for X-Men completists.
Rating: C
The New Mutants arrives on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD today.