So, wait… that is the Marvel movie that Fox re-shot and buried for a year? Say what now?
The New Mutants is far from great; the casting is flawed in places, they tried to stir a couple incongruous romances into the mix, two-fifths of the cast are superheroically superfluous, and it’s probably impossible to really know what’s happening if you’re not watching it with a moldering old man who bought the first 75 issues of the comic off a spinner rack in the ‘80s.
But come the fuck on… I’d watch TNM five times in a row before I’d watch a single one of Fox’s X-Men movies again. Among the studio’s two decades of X-output, I’d actually put this one at #3, behind Logan and the first Deadpool.
The flaws are real, no question. The casting of Dani and ‘Berto is weak and weird, respectively; maybe there’s a production backstory I haven’t read, but how the hell did Roberto Da Costa go from a short, arrogant Portuguese-speaking Black kid in 1982 to a bored 6′ tall Brazilian virgin-hunk in the 21st century?
And the problems with those characters don’t stop with the actors; Dani’s original ability-set was perfect for a coming-of-age story —because she can unexpectedly find anyone’s greatest fear or shame and literally show it to the world, she essentially had the power to make other teenagers hate her— but taking her straight to Full-On Demon-Bear drained her of much of her poignance. Meanwhile, Roberto had his powers swapped out for the absent Magma’s, probably because someone realized a slightly cringey Fiery Latino was a less-bad look than a whitewashed character turning black and punching people.
Fortunately, Anya Taylor-Joy is a delightful, show-stealing Illyana Rasputin —assuming this version of the character is still a Rasputin, who knows?— who could easily carry a Magik movie of her own, and the handling of The Lockheed Situation is simply adorable. (Had this movie been marketed competently, Lockheed sock-puppets would have sold big.) And to his credit, Charlie Heaton is a competent Sam Guthrie; his biggest problems come from the script’s complete disinterest in the character and what he can do.
Maisie Williams as Rahne… should work. Prior to seeing the movie, I viewed her casting as a bit of a coup; after, my feelings are mixed. Maisie doesn’t bring much depth or vulnerability to what should be an incredibly shy, insecure, self-loathing werewolf, and what little Arya-magic she does provide is undercut when the movie decides that the sexually repressed and violently shamed Catholic girl is going to instantly transition to an unrepentant queer who makes out in graveyards. It’s frustrating, because taking Rahne down that road is a solid idea, but taking her there in the first 30 minutes is a waste of a character that is otherwise sidelined by the giant power-gap between her and the rest of the heroes and villains.
Having shot its load on the Demon-Bear in the first movie, I’m not sure if The New Mutants had legs as a franchise… if it were to continue as a superhero-horror hybrid, the only place left to go would be Illyana’s Limbo, and that would be a lot for the average Marvel Moviegoer to swallow in one bite. But as it is —as the last artifact of twenty years of mediocre world-building at Fox— it’s a solid piece of work that shouldn’t embarrass anyone involved.