Very few films have the rocky journey to the box office that this week’s new film The New Mutants had. Originally slated for a 2018 release it was delayed for reshoots and then got washed up in all the problems with the Disney acquisition of Fox in 2019 with it getting 2 more delays in 2020 because of COVID19. Now we finally have it and is it worth the wait? I might be in the minority on this one but I think so. It’s not perfect but I enjoyed this little teenage superhero origin story film.

I should start out by saying I am completely unfamiliar with this run of comicbooks and I did not use the 3 years to read up on them. Sorry! If you are a fan please let me know how they did in an adaptation in the comments section. I would love to find out. I also should warn horror fans who are hoping for a scary take on superhero storytelling they are likely to be disappointed. There is one character I found scary but the rest wasn’t scary in the slightest- so let go of that expectation and you’ll enjoy the movie more.

There are also messy parts of The New Mutants. It starts very small and can’t quite bear the weight of its ending. In addition, some of the cinematography and visual effects felt more of the CW variety than a major superhero property. Nevertheless, I still had a good time watching this film!

The best way I can think to describe The New Mutants is a combination of X:Men Dark Phoenix and the movie GLASS. The beginning is more like the latter and the ending is more like the former. To begin the film our group of mutants are held in a psychiatric hospital (similar to the one in GLASS) and are told they are there to learn to control their powers. This is led by Dr Cecilla Reyes (Alice Braga in a very one-note performance). Dr Reyes is particularly trying to get to the bottom of a the skills of a new patient named Dani played by Blu Hunt. She is surrounded by other mutant teens played by Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, Anya Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams.

The beginning therapy sessions asks a lot of the actors but they all worked for me and the ending while messy was better than a bunch of other X-Men movies like X-Men Apocalypse (which I hated) and X-Men Dark Phoenix. I was way more invested in the survival and growth of these characters than anybody in either of those films and it’s certainly leaps better than something like X-Men Last Stand or X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

In a world of bloated superhero movies The New Mutants is also a blessed 94 minutes. This is just long enough to keep me engaged with the characters and have a lot of fun with the small-scale action towards the end. I won’t spoil it but I particularly liked the relationship we get between 2 of our teen characters. They had chemistry and I wanted them to be free from this hospital/prison so they could be together.

I have a feeling The New Mutants is going to be slaughtered by my fellow critics and it does have its flaws. For me I liked the coming of age approach to a superhero origin story. I liked The Breakfast Club for mutants feel to the screenplay. The likable young cast (not so young any more! LOL) worked well together and it clipped along nicely. I don’t know if you need to watch it in a theater but when it comes to streaming I’d recommend seeing it. If you do let me know what you think.

6 out of 10

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