The New Mutants Is Unlike Any Other Superhero Movie

The X-Men hold a unique position in the comic book world. They are the largest and most popular superhero team to exist. While there are independently popular members, the context of a team is where all of them truly shine, making them unlike the Justice League or Avengers. They are also extremely weird, all alternate timelines, half-clone daughters, giant purple genocidal robots, and metaphors for oppressed minorities. It probably should not work, yet it does.

The X-Men film adaptations hold a similarly unique position in its medium. Despite arguably being the progenitor of the current dominance of superheroes at the box office, the franchise is often an after thought in recent conversations. Perhaps because, like the source material, these films are weird and experimental—for comic book adaptations at least. Nothing else has seemingly-randomly soft-rebooted itself three times in 20 years, delivered multiple hit parodies, a Western-inspired road trip movie, and a horror-tinged teen romance.

The experimentation does have one downside: a high variance in quality. The series has produced incredible movies, mediocre movies, and truly awful movies. The New Mutants, the 13^th and final entry in the franchise, somehow manages to be a perfect encapsulation of the series’ variance within itself. It also captures that extreme weirdness that has the defined the series.

The opening 30 minutes or so of New Mutants are not great. Everything feels rushed, cuts from scene to scene—and sometimes within the same scene—are harsh and make the scenes feel completely disconnected. The movie is only 95 minutes long and it feels as though 20 minutes of character and tension building were erased in order to hit a strict time limit.

This opening period does have some strengths, though. First is Adam Beach, who is onscreen for a total of about 3 minutes the entire film, continues the long trend of fantastic actors that rarely make interesting things outside the X-Men movies. More important is the establishing of a potential romance between Rahne Sinclair and Dani Moonstar. The dialogue in their first few shared scenes can be a little rough—these feel the most like they were a part of the numerous reshoots—but Maisie Williams and Blu Hunt sell the relationship expertly. From Rahne’s quick side glances to Dani’s awkward, almost stuttering delivery, the pair are imbued with a strong “budding first romance and neither person knows how to approach it” energy that becomes the focal point of the movie.

This is the first notable superhero romance since 2014’s Amazing Spider-Man 2—the Lois and Clark relationship is fine in Man of Steel and its sequels but is more the actors having natural chemistry than a focal point. Somewhat less notable, but still a significant portion of the movie is the relationship between Bobby Da Costa and Illyana Rasputin. They are not together at the end, but there is a bit of flirting and Bobby clearly has a full-blown crush. Due to these relationships, this movie is unlike any other recent superhero fare.

Also making it unlike other similar movies is the horrorness of it all. Choosing to build a story around Dani learning to control her powers and framing it in a horrific manner as she accidentally torments her newfound companions is incredibly smart. It allows for clever and concise exploration of characters’ fears and motivations. It also leads to imagery that is unusual in this type of movie, though little of it is original. Unfortunately, the mid-20^th century asylum aesthetic of the film is significantly less successful. It is drab and largely uninteresting.

Its really in the final 40 or so minutes that everything begins to come together as the group become (somewhat uneasy) friends, Cecilia Reyes (who is the antagonist here) reveals who her employers are, and they group combat a giant, incredibly rendered Demon Bear. Illyana has the Soulsword. Rahne turns into a werewolf. Lockheed is a hand puppet that becomes a real fire-breathing dragon. Everything is really cool and then imaginary Adam Beach arrives to give Dani a pep talk so she can state the movie’s themes and save the day!

The back half of the movie is pure fun characterization, creepy horror, and cool action. Like the best of the X-Men films, it knows what it is and how to capitalize on that. If the first half were a bit stronger, this would be a well-respected sendoff to the ‘00s style superhero movies and the X-Men in particular. It seems as though Warner Bros. is trying to take the weird superhero mantle and continue in the X-Men’s footsteps. We all know that will not continue when mutants join the MCU, and it is a shame. But we will have this strange, beautiful, messy movie to return to.

Also, Charlie Heaton is doing this awful, Claremont-accurate Southern accent and it is incredible.