Starting in August 2017, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at every live-action movie based on a superhero comic in the weekly 4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch. He caught up to real time, as it were, in January 2020, but is revisiting the feature every six months or so to look back at the new releases in the previous half-year. Last week, we looked at The Old Guard, and this time ’round it’s The New Mutants.
There was no comic book more popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s than Uncanny X-Men. After the third-rate super-team was rebooted in 1975 by the late great Len Wein and the late great Dave Cockrum, Chris Claremont took over the writing chores and, working with Cockrum and later John Byrne, turned it into Marvel’s powerhouse, the X-Men eclipsing Spider-Man as Marvel’s flagship.
In 1982, the inevitable spinoff happened.
In the 1980s, Marvel was experimenting with new formats, including limited series and original graphic novels. The latter commenced with The Death of Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin, and three releases later, they used the format to launch the first X-Men spinoff, The New Mutants.
The X-Men were originally created in 1963 as students at a school, who were learning how to use their powers. Over the years, the book moved away from the educational aspect, with only occasional exceptions (like the character of Kitty Pryde, introduced to the team in 1979).
Created by Claremont and Bob McLeod, The New Mutants brought back that concept, providing a team of teenagers still learning how to get the hang of their powers. Following the lead of the revived X-Men team, the New Mutants came from all around the world: the Vietnamese Karma (first introduced in an issue of Marvel Team-Up by Claremont and Frank Miller), the Brasilian Sunspot, the Scots Wolfsbane, the Cheyenne Mirage, and Cannonball, from the heartland of America. Later, the team would add Magma, from a lost city that had kept the Roman Empire going for two thousand years; Magik, a Russian girl who became the disciple of a demon before she was rescued; Cypher, a linguist who was local to the area around Xavier’s School in New York; and Warlock, an alien.
The team would go through more changes after Claremont left, and eventually artist/plotter Rob Liefeld, working with scripter Fabian Nicieza, would transform the team into X-Force. The role of teenage mutants learning their powers would go to Generation X in the 1990s, and then the New Mutants concept was revived several times in the 21st century.
Some of Claremont’s best work was done in The New Mutants, including the Special Edition that had the mutants travel to Asgard, and issue #45 of the monthly series, “We Was Only Foolin’,” one of the best issues of a superhero comic in the ninety-year history of the medium.
A particularly impressive run was when Bill Sienkiewicz and his bizarre, distinctive style handled the art chores. Sienkiewicz’s unique artwork challenged Claremont to tell ever-more-surreal stories to good effect.
Inspired by the Claremont/Sienkiewicz run in particular, Josh Boone—fresh off the success of The Fault in Our Stars—created a pitch for a trilogy of New Mutants movies with his best friend Knate Lee and sent it to Simon Kinberg. Soon thereafter, Boone started preproduction work.
Boone and Lee mostly stuck with the original lineup, swapping out Karma for Magik. Maisie Williams (Arya Stark in Game of Thrones) was cast as Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane), with Anya Taylor-Joy (Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit) as Illyana Rasputin (Magik), Charlie Heaton as Sam Guthrie (Cannonball), Henry Zaga as Roberta da Costa (Sunspot; the character was also seen, played by Adan Canto, in the future segments of X-Men: Days of Future Past), and Blu Hunt as Dani Moonstar (Mirage).
The primary change from the source material is that these mutants aren’t gathered by Professor Charles Xavier at his school in Westchester, but instead are in a hospital in a remote location and kept imprisoned until they prove not to be a danger to themselves. The hospital is run by the Essex Corporation, intended to be a reference to longtime X-villain Mr. Sinister (whose real name is Nathaniel Essex), and also seen in X-Men: Apocalypse and Logan. To that end, the character of Dr. Cecilia Reyes is used as the administrator of the hospital. A hero in the comics, Reyes here is a pawn of Essex and very much a bad guy, played by Alice Braga.
The movie was plagued by delays. Boone and Lee’s original script was more horror-oriented, but 20th Century Fox wanted something more like a teen film, and then after the success of It, Fox changed their minds and wanted something closer to the horror movie Boone wanted to do. Tie-ins to the greater X-film universe were added, then removed, then put back.
Further delays happened when it was moved, first to avoid competing with Deadpool 2, then again to avoid the also-delayed Dark Phoenix, and then Disney bought Fox and it was delayed again, and then movie theatres all closed in spring 2020.
When theatres reopened in a limited capacity in the summer, Disney decided to release The New Mutants in August, to an unsurprisingly poor box-office showing. While Boone and Lee planned a trilogy, with a second movie involving an alien invasion with both Karma and Warlock appearing, and a third movie that would adapt the “Inferno” storyline from the comics, at this point, any sequels to this film are unlikely, especially with Disney planning to incorporate the X-characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“Demon bear—let’s play a game!”
The New Mutants
Written by Josh Boone & Knate Lee
Directed by Josh Boone
Produced by Simon Kinberg, Karen Rosenfelt, Lauren Shuler-Donner
Original release date: August 28, 2020
On a Cheyenne reservation, Dani Moonstar is awakened by her house being on fire. Her father brings her out of the house. The entire reservation seems to be under attack. Dani’s father leaves her by a tree, then goes back to try to help more people.
Dani falls unconscious, and then wakes up in a hospital bed, to which she’s handcuffed. Dr. Cecilia Reyes introduces herself and explains that this hospital is for mutants whose powers have manifested in a dangerous manner. They don’t actually know what Dani’s powers are, but they do know that she was the only survivor of a tornado that destroyed the reservation she lived on.
Dani meets the other teenagers in the hospital in a group session: Roberta da Costa, a rich Brazilian boy who refuses to reveal what his powers are or how they manifested; Sam Guthrie, a Southern kid who worked in the coal mines with his father, and whose power is the ability to rocket through the air at high speeds; Illyana Rasputin, who can teleport and also has a “soul sword,” and who always carries a dragon puppet named Lockheed; and Rahne Sinclair, a Scots girl who can transform into a wolf. (Dani later sees that Rahne has a “W” branded on her shoulder.)
Rahne actually shares how her powers manifested, unlike any of the others: she transformed into a wolf one day, feeling incredibly happy and free. But her pastor, the Reverend Craig, condemned her as a witch.
Reyes takes blood samples from Dani and tries to determine what her powers are. The kids spend some time together, though Illyana takes great pleasure in being cruel to everyone, especially Dani. Rahne and Dani bond, however.
At one point, Illyana shows Dani that the gates aren’t locked—but neglects to mention that there’s a force field around the whole facility, created by Reyes. That’s her mutant power.
One night, Sam has a nightmare that he’s back in the mine with his father, where he was killed. Over the next several days, they all experience intense real-seeming visions of their greatest fears. Roberto relives when his powers manifested and he burned his girlfriend alive, while Rahne is confronted in the shower by Reverend Craig, who brands her a second time—and the brand stays, even though this can’t have been real, as Craig is dead, having been killed by Rahne.
Illyana suffers the worst, as she was attacked as a child by strange men with smiling masks (or, at least, that’s how she remembers it).
While the kids think they’re being groomed to become X-Men, assuming them to be the “superiors” that Reyes is always talking about, the hospital is in fact run by the Essex Corporation. They send Reyes an e-mail instructing her to euthanize Dani, as she’s too powerful. Even as Reyes takes Dani off to kill her, her powers continue to manifest, re-creating Illyana’s army of smiling men, who overrun the hospital. Rahne goes to fetch Reyes, only to find her about to kill Dani. So Rahne uses her claws on Reyes and frees Dani, just in time for the demon bear—a creature that is truly what destroyed the reservation, and seems to be some kind of manifestation of Dani’s powers—attacks the facility. It kills Reyes, and almost does the same to the kids before Dani finally is able to calm it down.
With Reyes dead, the kids are free to leave.
“They made us cry, so we made them smile”
The New Mutants was one of my absolute favorite comic books as a kid, and it has remained so throughout my adulthood. I still go back and reread the stories every once in a while.
So it was really disappointing to see them finally adapted to the screen and have it come across as a mediocre pilot for a goofy show about teenagers with super-powers on the CW.
I appreciate that Josh Boone loved the Claremont/Sienkiewicz run on the book, but it wasn’t a horror comic. Yes, their first storyline involved a demon bear, but that was just the latest powerful villain that the heroes had to face. The comic was about kids trying to come to terms with their powers and with growing up and with being forced into the role of superheroes even if they didn’t really want to be.
More to the point, it was fun. It was one of the most enjoyable comics, even when it was pouring on the angst of life as a mutant.
Occasionally, Boone remembers that he’s doing a movie about teens, like when Illyana spikes Reyes’s tea so they can play, or when they sneak up to the attic. But mostly it’s a horror piece, and to drive it home, Boone and Lee have changed every character’s origin just enough to add murder to it. Sam didn’t just blast out of a coal mine, he killed his father and several other miners while doing it. Roberto didn’t just manifest his powers (which now include extreme heat, unlike his comics counterpart) in front of a bunch of people, he killed his girlfriend while doing so. Rahne wasn’t just condemned by her priest, but she killed the priest, too. And the demon bear is apparently a manifestation of Dani’s fear, and it destroyed her home.
Except it’s not entirely clear if that’s so, because the movie never really tells us what the demon bear is, beyond the Inevitable CGI Monster That Our Heroes Must Fight that has been the go-to of far too many climaxes in this rewatch. Worse, we never get a good sense of Illyana’s past. The smiling killers (all voiced by Marilyn Manson, which is pretty fabulous, actually) seem to have Russian prison tattoos. Is this how Illyana remembers them, filtered through the fear of a small child? In the comics, Illyana was taken as a seven-year-old to Limbo and raised by the demonic sorcerer Belasco. Time passes differently in Limbo, so she returned instantly, but seven years older. As a teenager, she became part of the New Mutants, but she always had a darkness about her.
Hilariously, Illyana is the one character to whom no changes needed to be made to make her a perfect horror-movie character, but instead Boone has reduced her to the mean girl.
At least she’s played by a talented actor. Anya Taylor-Joy does excellent work as an Illyana whose nastiness covers up horrific trauma. Maisie Williams also is fabulous as Rahne, as she beautifully conveys the character’s pain and anguish.
Sadly, the rest of the cast isn’t up to snuff. Henry Zaga and Charlie Heaton manage not to actually give Roberto or Sam any kind of personality, and Blu Hunt spends far too much of the movie just staring wide-eyed. Dani is the center of the film, and also one of the strongest of the original New Mutants, and Hunt doesn’t quite pull off the gravitas necessary for the role.
Worst, though, is Alice Braga’s charisma-free performance as Reyes, and that’s before we even get to the character assassination of turning Reyes into a villain. Arguably the finest contribution Scott Lobdell made to the X-Men during his time writing their adventures in the 1990s, Dr. Cecilia Reyes is a great character, a mutant who doesn’t want to be a hero, preferring to keep working as an ER doctor. (She was particularly well used in Marjorie Liu’s run on Astonishing X-Men in the early 2010s.) Seeing her transformed into a bland, villainous henchthug for the Essex Corporation is depressing as hell, and Braga does nothing to make the character in any way compelling.
Perhaps not surprising given the multiple reshoots, this is a movie that is neither fish nor fowl, with not enough fun teenage stuff to be the Breakfast Club-esque teen movie it sometimes leans toward, not enough chills to be a strong horror movie, and not enough heroism to be a proper superhero film. The New Mutants deserve so much better than this.
And so, once again, the great superhero movie rewatch has caught up to real time. I originally envisioned this year-end roundup as being way longer, as the original plan for 2020 was to have ten new comic-book superhero adaptations out, and we only got four, with a fifth (Wonder Woman 1984) coming on Christmas Day, finally. With a vaccine for the coronavirus on the horizon, there’s a good chance we will finally see the postponed Black Widow, The Eternals, The King’s Man, Morbius, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, along with other releases next year. We will likely continue the every-six-months look back, and WW84 will be part of the June 2021 revival of this feature.
As ever, thank you all so much for reading and for commenting. Have a wonderful and safe holiday season.
Keith R.A. DeCandido also is doing a rewatch of Star Trek: Voyager every Monday and Thursday for this site, plus reviews of each new episode of Star Trek: Discovery when it is released on Thursday.
I thought that none of the planned reshoots ever actually went forward. I recall reading a quote from Boone that the released film was basically the same as his original cut. (Edit: here it is.) And I read an article (which I can’t find) saying that the reshoots were postponed so long that they ultimately cancelled them because the young actors had aged too much in the interim.
One other criticism I’ve seen leveled at this film is that it casts a white Latino actor as Sunspot, who was originally conceived as biracial (IIRC), though some later comics have made the same whitewashing error.
Despite the negative reviews, I’m bound to see this at some point, if only because I want to see Lockheed make his screen debut. Though seeing Anya Taylor-Joy in a movie about superpowered people in an institution might bring back memories of Glass, which would not be particularly welcome.
It sounds like this movie was as much a victim of studio meddling as it was with unfortunate timing (the on-going delays). Those delays prevented the director from doing reshoots because the young actors kept aging which would have been all too apparent being spliced in with previously shot footage. And it seems the right tone couldn’t be found, teen angst study, straight up horror, or a successful melding of each. I remember being rather excited when I first saw the trailer for it at the movie theater what, three years ago? An X-Men movie in the horror genre seemed like a novel approach. I’ll still go watch this movie out of curiosity and since I’ve seen every other X-Men movie. Now that all of the X-Men characters are a part of the MCU one can hope that the New Mutants are rebooted and given a better outing.
Sunspot was the product of a dark-skinned father (who was to be played by Antonio Banderas if the trilogy had gone forward) and a light-skinned mother in the comics, with Roberto himself having a darker complexion as well.
At least they cast an actual Brasilian, as well as an actual Indigenous person as Dani.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
NM was a dreadful movie. It didn’t work as a superhero tale or as a horror piece. The decision to have one character working the “hospital” became unrealistic and tedious–in a small screen outing, it would have been more chilling, but I kept thinking, it seemed like a choice to save money–and what would happen if there was a plumbing leak? Cloaking itself too deep into conspiracy without eventual payoff is slopping writing and directing.
And the acting was awful.
Oh, and the racist barbs, they made me wince.
Surprised you did not mention the same-sex relationship, which was the only thing I approved off.
I saw it when it came out on home video and it certainly wasn’t the worst X-movie I’ve ever seen; and at least I didn’t have any strong recollections of Reyes, so the changes they made to her character didn’t bother me. But I admit that I didn’t realize until fairly late in the game that they were not, in fact, in a Xavier-affiliated institute, and I wouldn’t have caught the Mr. Sinister connections until they were pointed out to me.
(And as for the theatrical release itself, or, in fact, ANY theatrical release in the immediate future) imagine lying on your COVID deathbed and as the nurse comes to intubate you, you say, “Well, at least I saw New Mutants in the theater.”)
I got to see it in theatres two months ago. I chose a distant one, where no one else would be. It was basically me in an empty theater wearing a mask during the film’s screening.
And, honestly, despite all the bad press, I didn’t hate it. New Mutants isn’t a perfect film, or even a very good one. The comparison to bad CW teen drama seems apt. But I still found myself enjoying parts of it. It’s a simple film, one well crafted enough in terms of financial spending (making the whole thing inside a single location was smart; the CGI bear, not so much).
I didn’t care much for the protagonist, but I was delighted at any scene involving Illyana or Rahne. Taylor-Joy and Williams absolutely killed it in their roles. Roberto had no presence, and Heaton seemed to be channeling an even more depressed version of Jonathan Byers rather than actually playing Guthrie. I didn’t really know Taylor-Joy other than her muted role in the last two Shyamalan films, but I’m now eager to see more of her, and I have this film to thank for that.
And while it’s a mismatch of horror and teen angst, I found it eerily reminiscent of the original Bryan Singer X-Men at parts. Low-budget, focused on a teen girl, and with an going sense of off-screen menace. I almost wish we’d gotten sequels out of this. They could have fixed the problems of this one and made for a compelling case of improving returns.
Steve Berman: I meant to mention the Rahne-Dani smooch, but I forgot, which alone is a statement on how inconsequential it was to the rest of the movie. The characters had more of a sibling relationship in the comics, but whatever, I was okay with the reinterpretation, but they didn’t really do anything with it. Which was a problem throughout the film….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I pretty much agree with #6: it wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t very good. I certainly don’t need to see it twice. But AJT and Williams were great.
This entry is another case where the superhero movie rewatch has shown amusing timing. I got to the three Punisher movies the week before the first season of Marvel’s The Punisher debuted on Netflix, I covered Justice League the same day that Avengers: Endgame was released, and now I’m doing The New Mutants on the same day that Josh Boone’s latest project, The Stand debuts…….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
They made The Stand into a miniseries? I guess that means it’s not a one-night Stand.
As someone two of whose first three comic books were X-Men #20 and #22:
Aside from the simple slander in this absurd phrase, there weren’t enough super-teams for the worst to even be third rate.
Now I’ll read the second sentence of this review. I’m hoping not to return to the comments until after I’m done.
@11/JohnArkansawyer: I think Keith was probably talking about their popularity or prominence before the Claremont era, not their intrinsic worth.
I also saw this movie in the theater. But I didn’t have to go far to find an (almost) empty theater. A smaller theater chain built a theater near my house planning on the inevitable population increase of Central Florida. But at the present time, even before the Covid Panic, I don’t think the theater has ever been full. Given my habit of watching movies at odd times, they’re usually not even half full.
When I saw The New Mutants, there were less than ten people in the theater. Social distancing wasn’t a problem.
The best thing about The New Mutants is that it was far, far better than Dark Phoenix. No, it wasn’t a great movie, but I didn’t feel like I was ripped off for the ticket price. And it meant that the Fox X-Men run didn’t end like The Road.
See you in six months. At least with the Warner Brothers HBOMax deal, there will be movies to review in six months.
@13: Why six months? WB’s Wonder Woman 1984 will be available to stream from and review in only a week from now.
@14/garreth: Because that’s the pattern Keith settled on 11 months ago once the column caught up with real time — he’d revisit it every six months with a set of columns covering every superhero movie released in the interim. It’s just that 2020 ended up with far fewer superhero movies released than expected.
Having your teenage horror-themed superheroes actually watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on-screen is just asking for harsh comparisons.
1: “One other criticism I’ve seen leveled at this film is that it casts a white Latino actor as Sunspot, who was originally conceived as biracial (IIRC), though some later comics have made the same whitewashing error.”
Yeah. In the comics, Roberto is explicitly depicted as the son of a Black Brazilian father and a White Brazilian mother, and his Black ancestry plays a significant role in his origin. Very sad to see them whitewash the part.
Is “whitewash” really appropriate in regards to casting an actual Brasilian? The character was biracial; there’s some leeway there, especially seeing how they cast a minority Latino in the part. “Whitewash” makes me think of casting a white ethnicity. And please, I’m not looking for semantics about how Latinos are considered white. You know what I mean when I say “white.”
18:Is “whitewash” really appropriate in regards to casting an actual Brasilian?”
It is if the Brazilian is White.
Rented it on Amazon this week knowing it would be bad, and yeah. It was fun enough to see the characters brought to life, but it was all wrong.
The demon bear was Dani’s mass-murdering subconscious fear, instead of her parents transformed. Metaphor lost, and Dani’s a killer.
Limbo was Ilyana’s imaginary safe place she invented while being raped by pedophiles, instead of an actual place. I know the place in the comics could be read as a metaphor for abuse, but that reading would be a more nuanced way of depicting this than the sledgehammer approach of this movie. Ilyana is not Colossus’s sister.
Ilyana’s powers are undefined and unlimited, which admittedly is like the comics, but magic existed in the comics. Her mutant power was fairly well defined in the comics I remember. And in the comics, her sword did not cut flesh, but magic/spiritual things, which was cool. This was just thuddingly literal.
Lockheed is puppet who we see animated only in Ilyana’s imagination. I mean, there’s no reason to include him, but this was just bad.
Rahne is tormented by an evil Catholic clergyman (some stereotyping there) rather than an evil Protestant clergyman, because probably the filmmakers don’t know Scotland from Ireland? And she’s a killer.
Sam is short. I mean, most of his characterization in comics was done with Sienkiewicz’s visual language rather than the writing. And he’s a killer instead of saving his father from a mine collapse.
Bernardo is whitewashed, and his powers are all wrong, and he’s a killer.
@1/Christopher: @18/Austin: @19/Alexandra: As a white brazilian myself, it’s a tricky area. Most of the population back here is of mixed origin, but many of them wouldn’t define themselves as such. There’s a ton of unresolved racism and past slavery wounds around here, especially now given our current chaotic political climate that we live in, complete with a racist and homophobic president; and there are many people who would sadly prefer to bury their real origins instead of embracing them.
They could have cast a more black-looking actor for the part, given what we know from the comics. I’ve only read the comics once, and from what I’ve seen, the original conception of the character definitely qualifies as mixed.
Here’s the thing, though: I’ve never seen Henry Zaga on anything else besides this film. And he doesn’t make much of an impression as Roberto. But he’s still undeniably brazilian by the way he looks, and the way he behaves. Roberto initially comes across as a self-entitled upper-class Carioca* citizen (*born in Rio), one with a privileged upbringing, and one who could plausibly live near my own neighborhood (coincidentally, Alice Braga was also born here; though she hails from São Paulo).
But by our own cultural standards, Zaga is considered a white person, even though he’s visibly biracial and has more latino traits than anglo-saxon ones. As I’ve said, it’s tricky. And there’s a ton of variety across the population, and even within my own family, which ranges from having mixed-to-darker skin relatives to pure caucasian ones like myself.
Eduardo: Sunspot was established from jump as mixed, as his father is dark-skinned and his mother is pale-skinned, as seen in the very first scene in which Roberto was seen in Marvel Graphic Novel #4.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
KRAD knows full well the depth and longevity of my love for the New Mutants, as it was part of our shared motivation back during the GEnie era when we wrote fanfics in the same circle.
And apart from the turning of subtext into actual text with the relationship between Dani and Rahne, I’m hard-pressed to say anything good about what I’ve heard about this movie–one I certainly don’t plan to see or even acknowledge it exists in the future.
I mean, there’s something to be said for the horror aspect of mutants with uncontrollable, weird, terrifying powers. Dani’s powers were especially harmful in the early days when she’d accidentally yoink fears out of folks for all to see. Rahne’s werewolf nature was at odds with her sheltered, naive, oppressive upbringing. Illyana grew up in a demon-infested Hellhole. And so on. The original team were kids, but they endured some scary stuff. Dani was stalked by Professor X, who was at the time hosting a Brood, for instance. Karma was “killed off” pretty early on.
But this clearly wasn’t the way to do it. Turning Illyana into an obnoxious racist? Portraying Roberto as light-skinned when his powers manifested -because- of a racist incident in the comics? Cecilia Reyes as a villain, when there are so many other avenues to pursue? Ye gods.
From everything I’ve seen and heard, this was such a fundamental misfire and misunderstanding of the New Mutants as characters and a concept, that a full-on reboot could only improve upon it.
“karma was “killed off” pretty early on”
and possesed by Shadow King
*sigh* and erased from this movie.
hopefully when they reboot the series they include all of the important New Mutants
I see a lot of complaints about how much the movie changed things from the comics, but let’s remember, the first X-Men movie made enormous changes from the comics, totally mixing and matching the team composition, character ages and histories, and so forth, as well as leaving out important things like the Wolverine-Sabertooth backstory. Yet fans loved it. I think what matters isn’t just whether things are changed from the comics, but whether the changes result in a good story that works on its own terms.
Then again, I guess X-Men got the essence of most of the characters pretty much right, even if other details were changed. So that’s probably part of it as well.
I choose to believe that’s not actually Cecilia Reyes. Apart from all the other changes, her powers are different. It’s not as if that character would use her real name with the test subjects, either.
Christopher: the X-films changed details, yes, but the fundamental philosophy and characterizations were still the same. That’s not at all the case here, especially with the addition of homicide to every single origin…..
garethwilson: Huh? Her powers aren’t different, creating force fields is Reyes’s power……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Personally, I was excited by the early trailers for New Mutants, and am disappointed by its failures. While I agree with KRAD that it wasn’t a horror book per se, it definitely had horror elements, as a lot of comics had (and still have- Immortal Hulk probably being my favorite current example, although that one straight up is a horror book some of the time), and I was excited to see a Marvel adaptation that leaned more into that side of things.
@24- I think pretty much all X-men adaptations have played fast and loose with the line-up of the team. Probably because the original team didn’t even include Wolverine, and now starting a new X-men property without him is almost unthinkable!
But more fundamentally, some changes to backstory, even beyond the inevitable timeline shuffling of trying to pick the most popular characters from more than a half-century of comics, are probably inevitable in adapting X-men and their spinoffs, because they’re one of those groups that theoretically has a thematic unity of origin, unlike the Avengers or Justice League, but in practice have existed in the kitchen-sink land of Marvel Comics so long that they’ve picked up a lot of exceptions. Which is why exactly none of the seventy-nine X-men movies featuring Wolverine have gone into the fact that leprechauns know his secrets.
So Magik’s backstory involves not only her being a mutant and Colossus’s sister, but also tied to an alternate dimension where the laws of time operate differently, and also being kidnapped by a sorcerer and bound to a demonic essence, and also being raised by alternate versions of the X-men, and that’s an awful lot to fit in a movie that’s not titled New Mutants Origins: Magik.
As a final note, I continue to be disappointed by any X-men adaptation that hints at Mr. Sinister’s presence but does not display him in all his ridiculous villainous glam-rock glory.
The movie Reyes doesn’t seem to be able to protect herself using the forcefields – both Rahne and the bear can rip into her without her raising them. Whereas the comics version was introduced with the forcefield protecting her instantly when a Sentinel blasted her. I don’t think the comics version can do the complicated multiple-field Sue Storm stuff we see either.
Hmm… The comics New Mutants were collected by Charles Xavier, but they were quickly retconned – apparently – into intended hosts for Brood eggs like the one that was mind-controlling Xavier. Or was that intended all along, I don’t know – the Graphic Novel didn’t hint. So it wasn’t an entirely unhostile environment. Then one of the team, Karma, was killed, for a year anyway. There was darkness and not only in the coal mine.
Comics Dani’s initial power is to manifest other people’s fears or desires, usually as a static image that of course mainly affects the person with the fear or desire, but that other people can see too. I don’t remember if this wasn’t initially controlled by her, but mutant powers usually start tricky. So arguably, the monster manifestations come from other people. Dani also had a telepathic bond with animals, and that includes Scottish werewolves. Over time, almost exclusively werewolves, as far as I remember, never mind an introductory scene that Disney’s Pocahontas could be sued for where all the animals were her friends. Although that was a Disney Princess Power before it was a mutant power. (Does that make Tarzan a Disney Princess… but, lots of animals didn’t like him. Same for Mowgli.)
Mr. Sinister likes to clone mutants to use their powers for his own purposes, so this needn’t be the real Dr. Reyes. But going down that road, none of these kids have to be the original mutants, they can all be clones… that gets dumb, though, so, maybe just watch “Mutant X” again, instead?
And is Brasilian what people of Brazil are called in Brazil, and then how are people of Brasilia called? Just to get this straight myself.
JohnArkansawyer: I was referring to the X-Men’s sales figures and Q-rating when I said “third-rate,” especially when compared to, basically, every other Marvel superhero book of the era.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Pretty unremarkable superhero movie.
They already had a perfectly good send-off for this universe (Logan) and they just couldn’t help but keep running it into the ground.
@31/spencer: I don’t think Logan was meant to be a “send-off” for anything except Wolverine’s solo series, considering that three movies came out after it, Deadpool 2, Dark Phoenix, and this one — and at least two of those were made to allow for sequels.
krad@30: That’s entirely fair. Apparently my eight-year-old mind still takes offense to imaginary slights on behalf of imaginary heroes. I never understood why the series couldn’t ever take off.
And is Brasilian what people of Brazil are called in Brazil, and then how are people of Brasilia called? Just to get this straight myself.
@29/Robert: Brazilian is term used in reference to anyone who’s born in the country itself (brasileiros, in portuguese). People who are born in Brasilia (the capital) are usually known as “Brasilienses” (I’m not sure there’s even an english equivalent to that portuguese term).
But there’s not much cultural baggage associated with the term. Brasilia was founded only 60 years ago. A city that was deliberately designed from the ground up to be the seat of federal political power and state activities, thus being set up in the center of the country’s vast territory rather than the coastline (imagine a New Washington being built between Kansas and Nebraska). Therefore, it doesn’t carry the centuries-long colonial and social history that comes with historical cities like Rio and São Paulo (Rio was the original capital before the 1960s).
On the subject of terms of nationality. The preferred and prevalent adjective for someone from Scotland is Scottish, not Scots. Scots is primarily used in connection with our language. While not technically an incorrect usage as far as I am aware, it is jarring as a Scottish person to see a person described as Scots.
moonears: my mistake. Apologies.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Scotch is bad. Scot is an acceptable noun. Scotty… never as an adjective, and otherwise, only once Scotch is shared. ;-)
The Smile Faces in the movie may be an allusion to the battle suits of the anti-mutant group “The Right” which also had sinister smiles on them. It’s possible Illyana may have been kidnapped as a child from her family by The Right. If those are Russian prison tattoos, it could be that The Right in the film universe might be international.
I finally got to see this movie as of last night, so if nothing else, I can say I’ve now seen every X-Men flick for the sake of being a completist. But you know what, it wasn’t bad. It surely wasn’t great either but it was perfectly passable entertainment. The problems were it does feel unfinished, brief, unsatisfying in its resolution, and a quite lacking antagonist. As Krad described it, it really does feel like the pilot for a teen CW series but I would be a little more gracious and envision it as the pilot of an HBO Max series. Maise Williams and Anya-Taylor Joy were the standouts for sure. Henry Zaga was at least nice eye candy. The most remarkable and enjoyable part of the movie was Rahne and Dani’s romance/friendship which felt completely organic and natural and sweet. It’s still rare to see a gay relationship in a mainstream/comic book movie so that was the remarkable part. I didn’t realize Dr. Reyes was a mutant herself and just thought she had technology at her disposal to create the force fields. Not knowing any of the comic book characters’ histories, what I got out of Illyana’s backstory in the film is that it’s implied that she was sexually assaulted as a child by multiple men (the “smiling men”) and she’s suffering clear trauma as a result. But that’s pretty deep stuff for a mainstream comic book movie so maybe my interpretation is off?
I do wish this film had leaned even more heavily into the horror genre (Legion on FX did this very well) to make it something unique. There were definitely moments here where I did see that The Breakfast Club homage but it was too cutesy and didn’t really fit. Either go full on horror or go full on misfit teen comedy/drama where the kids have superpowers.
Anyway, as I mentioned in my comment prior to seeing the movie, I still think it would be cool if at least some of these characters with the actors that portray them can be imported over to the MCU.
I picked up the DVD of The New Mutants at the library. Since I haven’t read many of the characters’ comics, and not in quite a long time, I was able to go into this fairly fresh and judge it on its own terms rather than comparing it to the source. In that respect, it’s imperfect but moderately satisfying. I didn’t find its story actively stupid or insulting or incoherent. It wasn’t very deep or complex, and ultimately it was a rather simple story about mastering fears, but it was watchable.
I did find it borderline laughable how it went out of its way to give every one of the characters a murder-y backstory, but that actually made sense once it was revealed that this was an Essex Corp. program to recruit and train mutant killers, so of course all the “patients” would be mutants whose powers had already proven lethal. Maybe that’s too much a departure from the comics’ New Mutants — it’s more like the Hellfire Club, I guess, in that period when Emma Frost was evil and was running a rival school — but within the movie’s own terms, it made sense. Even though I was spoiled in advance, I thought it was fairly clever the way the movie set up the audience and the characters to think that Reyes’s “superior” was Charles Xavier, only to drop hints that something darker was going on and eventually to reveal the truth.
I agree the characters were underwritten, but I thought Dani and Rahne’s romance was sweet, and I was impressed at how far they took it when I was expecting something far more tentative. Illyana was unpleasant at first with her meanness and gratuitous racism, but she got better, and let’s face it, Anya Taylor-Joy was really hot here, especially in her action scenes. And Lockheed (when he finally showed up for “real”) was adorable.
I liked the visual effects design. Reyes’s force fields were interesting, the flashes of Magik’s Limbo dimension were visually striking, and the Demon Bear was fairly effective. I assume its smoky body was an interpretation of Sienkewicz’s art.
Reyes’s force fields were strange. If she generated them herself, how was there a permanent one around the hospital, even when she was asleep or drugged? Could she generate one and make it persist independently until she chose to bring it down? They could’ve stood to explain that.
Also, it annoyed me how they took the (putatively) Native American parable of the Two Wolves and substituted bears in order to fit the story they were using. It felt like cheating.
Keith, no mention of whitewashing the afro-latina Dr. Reyes? I thought there would be more outrage about that. I certainly was.
@41/J.U.N.O.: From what I can tell, Alice Braga has a multiethnic background that includes some African heritage. She’s the niece of actress Sonia Braga, whose father had African and Portuguese ancestry and whose mother was European/Indigenous. She (Alice) was nominated for a Black Reel Award, which is given to African-American or African-diaspora performers, for the 2008 film Blindness.
J.U.N.O.: As Christopher said, she wasn’t whitewashed at all.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I never realized. Thank you , Chris and Keith, for responding. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth
Marilyn Manson is in this movie, ooohhff