ontd original: I watched it so you don't have to; "The New Mutants"

Somehow, the X-Men spinoff The New Mutants has managed to sustain prerelease buzz ever since its first teaser trailer dropped all the way back in 2017 — though audience awareness has mostly kept pace because of the movie’s superhuman ability to elude release.

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The New Mutants is a 2018 2019 2020 American superhero horror film based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name. It is the thirteenth and final installment in the X-Men film series

The trailer came out in 2017.

Timeline:

2018 - Reshoots were planned
2019 - Disney bought 20th Century Fox
2020 - World Ended
August 25th 2020 - Film not screened for critics
August 28th 2020 - After 3 long years, our national suffering was at an end, and the movie was released.

It was one of 2 major movies to come out after most theaters in the states were closed (The other was “Tenet”). It took so long to release this movie that it was executive produced by Stan Lee, who died in 2018.

Sounds like a must see! 🧚🏼‍♀️ Get your tickets now ✨ https://t.co/4fqry3JAse

— Maisie Williams (@Maisie_Williams) August 28, 2020

Src

It’s also sitting pretty at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes...which is much better than other movies I saw in 2020!




However, unlike my Artemis Fowl post, where I knew everything about the source material...I don’t read Marvel comics. I don’t know who these children are.



What I know about this movie’s subject matter before I watched it:

Magik’s here. Yay, cool. The helmet she has looks like a NETGEAR Nighthawk wireless router. Sometimes she’s in...The Runaways? Is that right?

There’s a (the) Demon Bear.

....That’s it. That’s all I got.


(These images are really dark BECAUSE the movie is really dark)

The Cast

I’m more surprised they actually cast a Native American, as Blu is from the Lakota tribe.
I don't think she's particularly good, but that goes for 4/5 of the youth cast.

She shows up to be high and mighty while also vulnerable and clinging to Lockheed. Also rather racist to Dani before the latter beats her. Her style's cool? Illy is like the only person with more than 2 outfits.


She can turn into a wolf and was beaten by her pastor and ostracized for it from her community. You see instances of her abuse in the movie and it’s pretty shocking. I've never seen her act (I watched half an episode of GOT) and I'm more impressed than I thought I'd be.
I feel like I’ve heard of this guy - “Heaton also plays Jonathan Byers in the Netflix supernatural drama series Stranger Things”.

I guess I don’t because I’ve never watched ST! His story reminds me quite a lot of “The Hunger Games”. Mines. Death. Poverty. Does his character come from Appalachia?

“It doesn’t matter when this movie comes out, it’s still a mess that willfully erases/lightens two Afro-Latino characters, and I have to admit I’m a little pissed how no one seems to give a shit because, clearly, all Latinos are interchangeable” - damaliaraya

He’s whitewashed. Even the creator, Bob McLeod, knows. Pity because he is attractive.


McLeod didn’t have a lot of positive things to say. Who would, if no one spell checked your name in 3 years and misspelled it in the credits?





Random Stuff:

Dani’s power being making people relive their memories physically is a super effective tool in revealing the backstories of everyone.
I wonder how the prop search went for this. “We need those blankets - you know the ones - the waffle blankets. Super scratchy. Kind of thin. YES, that’s it!”


Between all the talking, the troubled production, the minimal use of powers, and lack of action for a superhero movie, this reminded me greatly of F4ntastic. At least people’s accents aren’t 100% terrible?

My favorite part is how 2020 so soundly beat people over the head, and this movie became such a laughing stock, that I had no idea there was actually a wlw romance until I watched it.

No one said anything on social media. Mind you, I haven’t been on tumblr in months. So that was a nice surprise in a movie full of...blandness.


Also - The guys often lose their tempers and storm out, but...they don’t go anywhere. They don’t attempt anything. It’s not as if Reyes sedates or brainwashes them, they bluster and nothing changes.

I know there’s the force field out there but for something aiming to be dark and edgy, give us another segment where they try to kill themselves out of spite. Or her! Maybe that was the original idea.


"They weren't training us to be X-Men...they were training us to be killers." Certainly the X-Men have snuffed someone out once? Maybe?

The final action scene with Magik fighting the Demon Bear is...pretty okay. It's kind of difficult to get a shot of so here's the end with Dani again!



The Final Thoughts

I don’t think it’s bad so much as it’s boring and not quite worth the 3 year wait. Maybe it means more to X-Men fans.

There’s some kind of moral of “You’re powerful, don’t let you stop yourself.” which is nice and something I personally could use

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Compared to other superhero movies this year...it's much better than "Bloodshot" and it's much, much worse than "Birds of Prey".

sources are in the post also me, totally legally paying for this movie 🌚, taking screenshots.
There's another movie I want to do this for but I don't know if I can stomach it again.