The New Mutants

The New Mutants was a long anticipated movie, originally set to be released in 2018. And I’ve got to say, it did not live up to the hype. Not even close.

This movie was the most confusing, oddly paced, and low stakes disaster I’ve seen in a long time. (Spoiler alert).

First of all, all of the twists weren’t even twists! The moment Dr. Reyes appeared on screen, my entire family weren’t even doubtful that she was the bad guy. To be fair, the film didn’t try to pass her off as a good guy, but when it was “revealed” that she was training them to be killers, they acted like it was this huge mystery.

Along with that, was it ever even a question that Danni was the source of the mutants’ fears showing up? I mean a new girl shows up, and all of a sudden people’s fears start manifesting? What could possibly be the cause of that?

I also just feel that the actors weren’t totally great. The character of Sam, played by Charlie Heaton, was acted decently enough, except for the accent. He was supposed to have a southern accent but it was as fluctuant as this movie’s genre. 

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out if this movie was supposed to be a horror, superhero, romcom, or coming of age movie. There were absolutely no transitions between the moods or scenes, it just jumped around on a whim. 

They were definitely some good aspects of the movie. The whole concept was pretty cool, just about the people training them to basically be anti-X-men and I really liked some of the characters. I thought Rahne was really cool and her backstory was really interesting and left me really curious. (Unlike others, like Roberto.)

Kelly Swanson, a teacher and viewer of the movie comments that, “It seemed like the director couldn’t decide what type of movie it was supposed to be. I thought that the characters were interesting but it was kinda all over the place.”

I definitely agree. It seemed like the entire movie was just one big plot device, where things would just pop up whenever convenient. 

I was also just mainly confused a lot of the time. We’re led to believe that the kids have all been there for a while… but then in the scene at the lie detector, they’re all learning things about each other like I feel like they had to have asked before.

Overall, The New Mutants was confusing, overwhelming, and just a disappointment. Even with the few good moments, I was left walking away from it confused and let down.