Nina Runcio

(SPOILERS AHEAD) I was pretty excited to watch this movie, being an avid MCU and X-men fan. I just want to start off by saying I have not read The New Mutants comic. Anyways, this movie was quite stale. It was boring, we barely got to know any of the characters, it hardly related to X-men except for it being about mutants and briefly mentioning Essex Corp., and there was little to no tension. I feel like they tried to make this some edgy teen drama, and I understand they were trying to put a spin on the normal X-men movies, but it just doesn’t work. The ending left me confused and unsatisfied. Where did they go? What happened to them? Did they get caught by Essex again? Did they go to Charles’s school? It was just so anticlimactic. The characters were also badly made. Their backstories were confusing and not well explained. In fact, the entire facility isn’t explained well and during the movie I had to look up what was going on. The characters were also so flat. Illyana was the only character that had a slight development, but was still kind of racist towards Dani near the end. Dani and Rahne’s relationship was cute but random, like there was no build up to it. Even though the actors and actresses were great, it’s like the characters were just so forget-able that the actors/actresses had nothing to work off of. Dani’s situation in the beginning was so confusing, and you have to wait until like the middle/end of the movie to fully understand what had really happened. I also think the demon bear was hastily put in, like at the end of the film the writers said, “whoops, forgot to expand on that part.” The genre is supposed to be horror but I felt that there were no scary or “edge-of-your-seat” moments. There was no like, sense of danger for the characters except for the part where Dani almost got killed. Even then, Dr. Reyes just dies, like you would think that would be the main problem but then it ends so anticlimactically. There were so many loose ends to the plot and the problems/climaxes were just brushed right over. There were no twists, big reveals, or anything like that. Even with the main character, Dani, you hardly know how or what she’s feeling at any given time. I would even say that the CGI, continuity, plot, and characters of Dark Phoenix were better than that of The New Mutants. Overall, I felt this movie was very boring, confusing, and rushed, and I am disappointed to know that it is the last installment of the X-men franchise. Although this review was very critical, I would like to end by saying I really liked the acting, and I appreciate and enjoyed the diversity and representation in The New Mutants. I also think the cinematography was great.