The New Mutants

        Finally. I mean, let me start off by saying that I feel bad for Josh Boone, the director and writer of The New Mutants. I'll get to that in a sec. The New Mutants is a story that, if you don't know you might be surprised, takes the X-Men universe in a completely different direction. It decides to go the horror route while also giving us five new mutant superheroes. Dani wakes up in a hospital to find out that she is the sole survivor of a tornado that rampaged over her home reservation. Dr. Reyes, seemingly the only doctor there, tells her that she probably survived because of her similarities with her fellow peers at this institution. From here we get introduced to 4 more mutants. Some of their powers are kept a secret for later and others are shown pretty early on and Dani doesn't get along with all them instantly. 

        Here's where the film will probably have the most recognition: its time spent in post-production hell. If you don't know much about this movie, you more likely know about its journey just to get into theaters. This film first got pitched all the way back in 2014 as Josh Boone was enjoying the success of his teen-flick The Fault in Out Stars. He wanted to take his knack for appealing to the younger demographic and apply it to something bigger. He got approval from Fox to start working on a screenplay for the New Mutants and filming began in August 2017. That's right, principal photography took place THREE years ago. The film was slated for a 2018 release. From here, it got pushed back numerous times due to a number of reasons. Amidst plans for reshoots that never happened and other successful Fox/ X-Men films getting released, the film looked like it was never going to be released. When Deadpool was a success, The New Mutants got pushed back for the first time so as not to be shadowed by the irreverent character's success and then it got pushed back again and again for other reasons including touching up special effects, the release of Dark Phoenix, and the Disney/Fox merger. The fifth release date was slated for April of this year, but this was because of outside circumstances since COVID-19 forced the shut downs of practically all theaters. Ever since June, theaters, at least in my area, have slowly started to open back up again with numerous new limitations in place, but this poses a problem as to whether theaters will be able to pull themselves out of this. Either way, three years after principal photography the film has finally been released for theaters. This film will no doubt be remembered because of its post-production legacy, but how is the actual film? After waiting so long for another movie in the X-Men universe, it's disappointing that it turned out to be just 'meh'.

        Will Ashton from CinemaBlend states that the original plan for this movie was going to be "Stephen King meets John Hughes" and, well, I think it succeeds on that front. It's coming of age aspect delivers nicely for Dani's character as we learn about the deeper psychological aspects of her mutant abilities. Granted, the resolution we get might have been a little too, for lack of a better word, easy. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, it just felt like it sort of undermined the growth she experienced throughout the film.

        Speaking of growth, the film also did an okay job of introducing the other new characters. They all have backstory and they're all there at the hospital cause of how their uncontrolled powers have affected normal people, but it ultimately only scratches the surface of the psyche of these characters. They're explored just enough to keep them from being one-dimensional, some more than others, but it isn't really enough to get me invested in them more. Although, shrouding a characters backstory in mystery can be interesting, we never get to learn more about them other than the one key event that traumatized them. Maybe they were planning on fleshing these characters out more in future movies, but the possibility of seeing these characters again in a future film is very slim since Disney merged with Fox.

        Although the characters were a bit uninteresting, some of the relationships they made with each other were well done. It makes sense that the 4 mutants, before Dani got there, would be so close to each other and I think these dynamics were well executed. It's that John Hughes aspect that does pretty well. As for the horror part, well, it's not the best even though it has all the ingredients. There's demons and themes of childhood trauma, and an abandoned looking hospital as the setting. Despite all this it still doesn't manage to deliver on this front and it's because of one thing: tone. Trying to mix King and Hughes into one movie I think is a great idea and while it does do a decent job at recreating a Hughes vibe, it puts a little more focus on creating that particular tone and the horror elements suffer as a result. It's more drama and suspenseful than horror is anything.

        Even though I think Boones did the best he could, the film just suffers from being painfully mediocre. However, there was potential. Everything was there for this film to be better than how it turned out. Even Disney executives were "unimpressed" with it after the two companies had merged. This was originally planned to be the first in a trilogy of movies, but those plans are in limbo and so we have no choice but to absorb this film as a stand-alone feature. This film will probably be remembered for a long time, but not how the producers intended. Ultimately, this film's complicated journey to release is more interesting than the actual film. 5/10