The New Mutant (2020)

The New Mutant (2020)

3/10

Starring

Maisie Williams

Anya Taylor-Joy

Charlie Heaton

Alice Braga

Blu Hunt

Henry Zaga

Directed by Josh Boone

I don’t understand why this movie is so badly written. The director didn’t do a good job with the pacing – there were moments when it felt like I was being dragged along, waiting for what was “really happening.”

I can’t understand how the director got so caught up in the mystery and the whole incident/hunting of the facility that he forgot the movie was meant to entertain. The film even goes so far as to change the role of Dr. Cecilia Reyes from her comic character, turning her into a mess of what originally seemed like something with potential.

I also didn’t feel the cast members, except for Maisie Williams (who plays Wolfsbane) and Alice Braga (as Dr. Reyes). The rest didn’t give their best performances—maybe it’s due to the script or the director, but I wasn’t impressed. After seeing Anya Taylor-Joy (who plays Magik) in The Queen's Gambit, if not for her fantastic acting in that series, I would have written her off as someone who still has a lot to learn.

The movie starts with a devastating event at a reservation during a tornado. The destruction leaves young Dani an orphan. She passes out during the ordeal and wakes up at a facility, where we meet Dr. Reyes. We learn that she’s not only keeping Dani there but also four other young mutants. Dani is told that she’s a mutant and that the facility is meant to help her learn to control her powers before she’s moved up to join the X-Men. Dani’s main challenge is that she’s unaware of her powers and how they work.

The other people in the facility are Rahne/Wolfsbane, Illyana/Magik, Sam/Cannonball, and Bobby/Sunspot.

While there, we discover their different character traits and attributes, and soon the facility becomes a place of terror. The young mutants are struggling to control their powers and their rage. We begin to see them having dreams about their pasts, and those dreams start to manifest, becoming real and haunting them in the facility. Dr. Reyes has little to no power to stop or control what’s happening.

I guess Disney just wanted this movie out of the way as they launched their new world of mutants. We should note that this movie was made by Fox before the Disney acquisition.

The movie is boring and wastes the talents on screen. I don’t think the writers and directors had a firm grip on what they were supposed to be launching, because this was a bad film.