So I Finally Watched New Mutants…
And let me tell you right off the bat, you don’t need to watch it.
Thank you to all of you who have been sharing my newsletter and comic around the last few weeks! It goes a long way and I really appreciate it. I wanted to send over the next couple pages of my comic, plus give you a quick movie review!
CHAPTER 1: Page 3-4
With Deadpool and Wolverine just around the corner, I decided to do a little homework and rewatch all the Fox X-Men movies. New Mutants was the last on my list and boy did it live up to it being “homework”.
For those of you who know me, I am generally positive/not super picky about movies. I enjoyed Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania when many people out there didn’t. I had a blast in The Marvels. And I thought She-Hulk was a lot of fun. So it should hit a little harder when I say I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie.
A little background. Warning, this is all from the memory of when this movie was being released, so forgive me if all the facts aren’t spot on (But also feel free to comment if you have additional facts!). New Mutants was put into production before Disney had bought Fox, but wasn’t released before the acquisition. So when Disney got a hold of it, it really felt like they didn’t know what to do with it. So it stayed on the shelf for an exorbitant amount of time. People began to question whether this movie would ever be released. Finally, after we had all lost interest, it was released in 2020. It was not able to make enough to cover its budget and was an all around failure.
After watching it, I can understand why. I am a big fan of Anya Taylor-Joy. She’s fantastic in The Queen’s Gambit, The Menu, and undoubtedly will be phenomenal in the upcoming Furiosa. That being said, her character, Magik, did not do it for me here. She was an over-the-top, racist bully to main character Dani. On top of that, for those that don’t know comics, her power set made absolutely no sense. She has a metal arm with a fire sword? Oh now she’s opening portals? Where did that dragon come from? She was much too confusing a character.
Then we had Cannonball, another stereotype of a southern character. They gave him (or attempted to give him) a strong southern accent. But Charlie Heaton could not land the accent. And honestly, he didn’t need it. They could have left it off completely and it would not have changed the character whatsoever.
The movie is told from the perspective of Dani Moonstar. It starts with a story of the two bears that live inside each of us. One representing the good part of us, and the other representing the evil. What made me uncomfortable with this was that this is based of a Cherokee legend about the two wolves. There is a legend called “Two Bear Cubs”, but it is nothing like this. They simply appropriated this story to fit their needs. Which isn’t a good look.
This movie was marketed as a horror film, but did not take it far enough in my opinion. When the trailer came out for this movie, I was actually pretty excited for a different take in the comic book space. But the “scary” parts weren’t scary enough. The moments they tried to make jump scares didn’t make me jump. And the eventual antagonist (a demon bear being created by Dani’s mind…maybe…it was unclear) was defeated very easily.
All this being said, the X-Men franchise has been through a lot of ups and downs, but New Mutants is it at its worst. If you are planning to do an X-Men marathon before Deadpool and Wolverine, I give you permission to end with Dark Phoenix and leave this one out (I can’t imagine this one is referenced).
Have you seen New Mutants? What did you think of it? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Just for context, I started collecting New Mutants with issue #1 and stopped shortly after Rob Liefield took over as penciler. Meaning, I quit just in time to miss the first appearance of Deadpool in issue #98 (which, financially speaking, would have paid off for the first eight years of collecting).
We can agree that it was a terrible idea to try and make New Mutants as a horror movie, but for sheer entertainment value, I think it stacks up favorably when you compare it to other Marvel horror adaptations: Blade, Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Morbius, and Venom. Not to say that the Blade and Ghost Rider movies didn't make a lot of money. Also, not to throw shade at Werewolf By Night, which is clearly an outlier in terms of quality movie making.
I think we should acknowledge that these movies spring from comic books aren't truly in the horror genre either. They may muck around with horror tropes, but for the most part, we're talking about action stories with monstrous anti-heroes. I'd even include Marv Wolfman's run on Tomb of Dracula in that category. EC and other publishers made great horror comics, but not with ongoing characters. To my mind, we really didn't see a sustained horror narrative until Alan Moore took over Swamp Thing.
If you want to compare The New Mutants movie to the X-Men franchise, you have to admit that the kids don't have a fraction of the X-Men's cultural cache. If their comics didn't sell nearly as well as the X-Men books, you shouldn't be surprised if their movie doesn't do as well. Especially when it's made for a fraction of the budget and released during Covid. Even with all of that aside, and fully acknowledging all of New Mutant's flaws, at least it didn't ruin any important story arcs. Just wish X-Men, with its botched handling of everything from the Phoenix Saga to Days of Future Past could stay the same. At least Deadpool was able to get a franchise to redeem his original mutilation (literally).
One last point for those who aren't familiar with the comic books. The demon bear being referenced in the movie comes from New Mutants #18 and #19, the first two issues drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz.
Thanks for the context!