Being a teenager is hard. There are countless emotions running through their brains, bodies changing into something new and scary. It’s a moment when childhood fades into adulthood, finding identities starting to be formed. It’s why cinema has been obsessed with capturing the transition, finding artful ways to make this moment hold a deeper poignancy. For director Josh Boone, that involved mixing fun unlikely chemicals to make up his latest movie The New Mutants (2020). It’s easy to imagine how exciting the elevator pitch was, creating a wholly original story even within the X-Men iconography. Imagine, if you will, a superhero movie that’s just as much borrowing from John Hughes as it is horror movies. Sounds exciting, no?
Of course, The New Mutants is likely to be bettered remembered for the endless setbacks that it received getting from filming to release. Prime among them was the famous Fox/Disney merger that likely brought with it an alteration of the final vision. Similar to X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), it felt doomed to be ignored by the studio, barely released to recoup a small fraction of a profit. Add in countless reshoots and maybe some plot revisions, and The New Mutants that exists on home video today is likely much different than what Boone intentioned. As someone who previously made an entertaining teenage drama in The Fault in Our Stars (2014), it makes sense that this is the side of the film that works.
Everything else, maybe not so much. The gist of the story centers around five teenagers who have been assigned to an asylum to control their superpower. They all come from different backgrounds, brought together through therapy sessions that are meant to improve their mental health, finding some value in themselves. This is not new territory for an X-Men story, though the idea of pitting it as a small, intimate drama definitely is. At times the story feels reminiscent of The Breakfast Club (1985), finding characters discussing their differences in such a way that is meant to make you sympathize and understand them on a more personal level.
At the center of the movie is Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt), a Native American who becomes a hot commodity for Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga), believing that she possesses some powers that could benefit her experiments. Dani is spiritual, opening the film by telling an allegory regarding two bears living inside of us that symbolize peace and chaos. It’s a perfect way to summarize every character, who is on the verge of nervous breakdowns and finds some solace in wandering the grounds, having conversations that make them feel less alone. Even if Reyes is placing them inside a force field that makes escaping the grounds difficult, it’s here that they begin to be free.
Boone clearly had the most interest in Dani’s relationship with Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), who is a perfect balance for Dani in several ways. The most apparent is that where Dani symbolizes bears, Rahne is a werewolf. They complement each other, and it begins a romance that sounds like it will be more integral to the plot. It will be some saving grace in the third act. However, it never comes to be. The first 50 minutes features promising chemistry building, even with the wildly anarchic Russian teen Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy) trying to pick fights. Still, there’s nothing substantial about the Dani/Rahne relationship that builds and it’s symbolic of the rest. It’s not a good sign that the film ends and you can’t name a single character.
Boone’s first hour feels substantial because it finds something more vulnerable and honest with superheroes. They may all be different, but they have these small ways in which they are compatible. They come from broken homes, but much like the spirituality between Dani’s nature and Rahne’s religion, there are others who have themes of abuse and mental illness to pull from. As a typical drama, it’s not terribly complex but makes for an interesting subdued story about feeling imprisoned, judged by strangers. It’s the perfect teen formula and convinces you that The New Mutants will end on a higher note than most would suspect.
But alas, there is that third piece of the puzzle: the horror. While there’s foreshadowing to it throughout, there is too much of a gap between character building and the action-heavy third act. Even if the villains – all of supernatural backgrounds – have some ties to the characters’ personal fears, there is an overabundance of them, making it all blur into an overwrought haunted house movie that can’t agree on which direction it wants to go in. Everything from slender men-style figures in masks to evil scientists and mutant bears come into play, but there’s no unity. They all are just obstacles to overcome, not revealing too much about characters besides surface-level symbolism.
Another film that covers similar ground with less superhuman characters is It (2017). Like The New Mutants, director Andy Muschietti wanted this to be reflective of a teen angst film through the guise of Amblin films of the 1980s. It was also the first major film adaptation of the Stephen King novel, featuring one of his most memorable characters: Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
That may end up making all of the difference. For Muschietti, having the blanket idea of fear be presented in this evil clown feels more successful than The New Mutants’ unmemorably named characters fighting even less memorable villains. From the beginning, It establishes Pennywise as a threat, existing in the sewer. With this small act, he comes to symbolize the foundation of Derry, MA; existing in the sewer pipes, brainwashing the adults to behave poorly. The central group, known as The Losers Club, all face different trauma throughout the story from abusive parents to anxiety and weight problems.
And yet, every random beat works. This is in a small part because of how Muschietti establishes the tone. He understands that a lot of the fear is built from characters. The terror lies in the mystery, in basements of the library, or in a synagogue in between trying to prepare for a Bar Mitzvah. While it can be argued that a large fraction of these scares is momentary, they put the viewer on edge. It’s in part because Pennywise is a shapeshifter, able to manipulate himself into the worst images imaginable. Even then, there’s more fear in the anticipation of Pennywise and The Losers Club attempt to stop him. There’s tension even in the moments where the kids are just kids, bonding over being outcasts with trauma, bullied, or their differences.
That is what’s missing in The New Mutants. As much as it sets up certain ideas, the third act comes as something more abrupt and messy. For instance, Rahne’s Catholicism is an idea that’s explored throughout the film, even featuring a demonic confessional that shakes with horror. When she is attacked in the shower by a monstrous incarnation of a priest, face torn astray, it’s the closest that the film will come to realizing trauma on any richer symbolic level. Even then, defeating the priest is only another obstacle in the rack’em up structure of this story.
The issue is that while the first 50 minutes bring forth compelling characters, there’s little understanding of their powers. There’s no trust exercise that would suggest preparation for that third act. During this time, Illyana reveals that she can teleport and has a crazy weaponized arm. While the latter detail is suggested earlier in the story, there’s little to suggest that she knows how to use it. While it’s easy to believe that teens aren’t aware of their own strength, from a narrative perspective there need to be moments where these things foreshadow something that will help the action flow swiftly. As it stands, The New Mutants has a few scenes missing that could’ve strengthened that problem. The third act could still arguably be messy, but it would have more catharsis.
For It, this isn’t as much of a problem. Sure, it has a longer running time and more scenes to pull from. There are understood dynamics, where the nerds get to make raunchy sex jokes and emasculate each other as a form of bonding. They’re just teenagers trying to cope with insecurity inside of them, and sometimes something as simple as enjoying New Kids on the Block albums goes a long way to making them feel organic. Another kid may obsess over the sewer system. Why? Because his brother was consumed whole by Pennywise, his body dismembered in the rainy street. His father tells him to stop being so paranoid, making The Losers Club’s interest in his plan to defeat Pennywise all the more palatable.
By the third act when they dive into the pit of Pennywise’s lair, there’s enough trust in these characters that in some small way, we identify with them. We have all been insecure, and the idea of a trauma that no adult can save us from is horrifying. The New Mutants want to believe that as well, but again the level of trust is not there. We care that Beverly (Sophia Lillis) is kidnapped and the boys must find some inner strength to save her. It’s also reflective of a haunted house where every room presents some new nightmare, but they feel like intentional diversions, of a psychological breakdown symbolized by the house breaking floorboards and sending boogiemen after them.
This would be easy to interpret in The New Mutants if there was any comprehensive set-up. As mentioned, the Dani/Rahne relationship is about as complex as things get… and even that is reduced to allusions of a lesbian relationship that grows. We don’t have enough development in anyone to suggest peril, of sacrifice to help each other. Illyana seems unlikable and distant until she has to be a hero, which is one of the wildest parts of the film. It makes no sense, there was no set-up, but her time traveling is set-up as some triumphant reveal. It is, but again… what does any of this mean?
The only part of the third act that makes sense is, thankfully, the final boss fight against a giant mutant bear. While it’s difficult to determine where it came from, it’s a chance to reflect Dani’s spirituality as a strength, a bear whisperer of sorts. With a better story that sided more with teenage insecurity, it can be argued that this moment is even powerful. In its current form, it’s an ending that makes sense symbolically, but not narratively. What is being balanced by defeating the bear of chaos? Sure it’s a happy ending, but so much is lost because it decides to be much too busy finding generic demons symbolizing broad fears.
With It, there is a sacrifice and character growth, in the end, finding every character having some hurdle to overcome. Seeing the true face of Pennywise is horrifying, and it builds to something that feels insurmountable. You understand it as real trauma. While this is only a momentary defeat, it’s one that understandably brings The Losers Club closer together, giving them a shared experience that they will return to. They understand the weight of their actions and the brief respite from fear that they face.
Maybe it’s just because Pennywise is a more recognizable and enjoyable character, but It is far more successful in capturing trauma through the supernatural lens. It understands characters, if just because of the introspection they give them, able to cope with fear in very rambunctious ways. The New Mutants feels like the victim of studio interference, taking what felt like a bigger picture and reducing it to something more conventional. It sacrifices character development in favor of perceived peril. Could there be a good version of The New Mutants? I believe so. It was there in the first 50 minutes when they find beginning moments of vulnerability predicting growth and understanding. The issue is that it never came. All it had to do was make an X-Men version of The Breakfast Club and it would’ve been great. Instead, it’s a bit of a mess. An entertaining one, but still.
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