【Overview】
The mutants who were born during the civil rights movement in the United States not only come from Stan Lee’s laziness in creating the origin story ("Does everyone have to be bitten by a spider?"), but also corresponds to the long-lived (and continues to this day) American society , Systematic discrimination against minorities (race, belief, sexual orientation). Although this kind of discrimination is actually untenable in the Marvel universe (also a super virtuous policeman, Spider-Man is a "good neighbor in New York"), diversified exploration still provides the X-Men with vigorous vitality.
The key to this series lies not in "ability", but in "choice"-which is also the essence of any successful superhero story-whether to be Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, whether to be a protector or The saboteur, is it a superpower or an ordinary person. The collision and impact of multiple values gives a deeper meaning to the superpower showdown.
In the 20th century, Fox has sacrificed two generations of mutants on the big screen for a full 20 years, one Logan and one Deadpool. Before being put into the bag by Disney, there were twelve movies in total, including highlights such as "First Class", "Reverse the Future" and "Logan", as well as the "Phoenix Legend" that messed up twice.
"The New Mutant", which bounced five times, is a regrettable outcast. This is certainly related to Disney: for the MCU, the more well-known mutant predecessors are all refused to appear. The betrayal of Foss and Simon Ginberg in the 20th century was an unexpected self-digging of graves: the Essex group and Mr. Fright in the "Apocalypse" egg could have been used in "New Mutants". A sense of existence, and then combine with the main story to make a combination punch. But "Apocalypse" has become a dud, and Foss obviously mumbled about the launch of a new villain. When the conditions were completely immature (the audience did not approve, the role has no foundation), the old road of "Black Phoenix" was followed, and once again, the fate of the X-Men on the screen was ended.
But this time there is no Matthew Vaughan to save; the new mutants will no longer meet with the large forces.
"The Fault in the Stars" director Josh Bonn is a veteran X-Men fan, but in the context of the general situation, what awaits him is the tragedy of "Fantastic Four 2015". The idea of superheroes mixing and matching horror types is beautiful, but a fatal problem is that fear comes from the unknown and powerless, and comes from the destruction of known rules. When the superpowers are removed/neutralized, the zombie Iron Man section of "Spider-Man: Far From Home" is effective, and the first half hour of "The New Mutants" is also effective. But this is essentially unsustainable in superhero movies: when the protagonists regain their abilities/effectiveness and enter the super-power fighting each other, it means that the rules are rebuilt and the atmosphere of fear naturally fails.
This is why "The New Mutants" is the target of imitation, "Return to the Clown" can achieve the horror of youth mix and match, but the former cannot. When your villain/object of fear can be simply violently acted/defeated, what is really scary? This is also the mainstream design idea of contemporary horror games: when you can't abandon the combat system, at least various resource restrictions will be added.
With the return of the X-Men to the Disney MCU, Mickey Mouse also saw at least the irreconcilability of the two elements on the surface: "Doctor Strange 2", who wanted to challenge the horror element, gave the guide tube to a person with rich experience in both aspects. Sam Remy-even though he has not directed a feature film for 7 years (not to mention many mediocre productions), he has never achieved cross-genre in his work-but (same as "New Mutants" PG-13's target classification has also destined the stock and level of terrorist elements.
【Production】
The budget of "New Mutants" of less than 80 million US dollars is not low, but because Josh Boone and his childhood friend Nate Lee are quite skilled in screenwriting, the monotonous content seems very stretched; "Mr. Glass", which M. Knight Samalan paid 20 million out of his pocket, has almost the same plot design and expressiveness except for the special effects shots and higher standards.
As a 90-minute superhero movie, in the first half an hour, "New Mutants" can maintain a good rhythmic dynamics in plot and mood, but the quality of narration has declined rapidly since then: nearly 20 minutes of water injection No major events occurred during the time, and the inspiring youth drama did not solve any problems with the previous plot or characters;
Immediately afterwards, the movie actually completed the biggest task (lily) in the relationship between the characters in the 50-minute node, and then continued the Jump Scare+ (pseudo) psychological fear in the first half hour. An hour after the opening, a few minutes of action scene finally ushered in, which officially means that the horror content of "New Mutants" has officially exited. The battle with the Big Boss Demon Bear took place in the last 15 minutes of the movie, and ended with a non-impacting mouth cannon.
It is a good angle to describe the fear of adolescent growth from the perspective of mutants; but the execution of "New Mutants" is so bad, and the loose scripts are superficial and too general in both themes and character development, Joe Sher Bonn failed to capture even the slightest connection between mutants and youth films (in contrast to the little mischief of the original trilogy), instead, it seemed like a few unrelated films were twisted together. The action of the character lacks purpose, the promotion of the story relies heavily on external stimuli, and the villain of Alice Braga is not even defeated by the protagonist.
When the development of characters and plots are on two parallel lines, it hurts the narrative and themes greatly, and is extremely insatiable-this is also the reason why most horror movies are unflattering. Take the characters as an example. "New Mutants" describes to us who these characters are for nearly 90% of the time, but it fails to describe how these knots affect them.
In the preset nightmare attacks, the movie only explained the background and abilities of the character, but failed to connect with the character’s current state of character-its imitation object "Clown Back to the Soul" did a good job at this point (after all, from Stephen King)-This makes the biggest presupposition of the whole story, receiving treatment/training to control the ability, seems particularly untenable, because the so-called problems and treatments do not exist, and it is impossible to know where they will eventually go. .
In fact, the most appropriate part of "New Mutants" is to portray the emotional and physiological ignorance of teenagers, and the parts related to mutants are rather perfunctory. If this is a TV series similar to "Innate Talent" and "Large Crowd", the audience may be able to tolerate this kind of chat-based format and arrangement.
But "New Mutants" was not made for the TV media; if the action scene can't catch people within 90 minutes, there is no chance to recover the foreshadowing and get redemption in the second episode.
【Performance】
Although the characters and abilities are all derived from the comics of the X-Men and the new mutants, the boringness of the movie is believed to make even the most diehard fans lose interest. Only in the last fifteen minutes, the confrontation between the Demon Bear and the secret guest (Anja Taylor-Joy) was a bit worthwhile.
The reason is probably that Josh Bonn is too self-confident (arrogant) about his own script ideas and ideas, resulting in no one from adult actors to young actors who can let go. The protagonist group of three men and two women obviously has a good casting. Maisie Williams (Lymphomania), Charlie Heaton (Cannon) and Anya Taylor-Joy (Secret guest) also all have their own famous works. These three roles are also one of the best places in "The New Mutants", especially Anja Taylor-Joy, who deserves to continue to appear in the original (the possibility of existence is 0) or independent movies.
However, the three of them failed to find a benchmark and cohesion for the film. The five protagonists who check in according to the minority groups—aboriginal, Latino, blue-collar, lily, religious/sexual persecution—in the end, there are still five protagonists who are opened according to the minority groups, not one that is inseparable from each other. Relationship groups.
For example, Lily, which is easily achieved in a few scenes, is very unreliable and convincing. And despite being the core role of "New Mutants", Brue Hunter (Moonstar) performed the worst. Considering the relatively rich material and space, the lack of performance experience is obviously fatal, and personal emotional growth is almost all set off with the help of other actors.
Superhero cards, youth cards and horror cards, Josh Bonn played horror cards at his best in "The New Mutants". Although the routine is a high imitation of "The Clown", it is still effective under the PG-13 classification. Perhaps his ability in this area can be helpful in the remake of Stephen King's "Doomsday".
【Summarize】
As a pioneer of superhero movies, the final legacy of the 20th Century Fox and the X-Men universe is disappointing-even if you enter without any hope, you will feel disappointed. Different from the full collapse of "Fantastic Four 2015", "New Mutants" is precisely because of its shining points that give people unrealistic ideas; and when these shining points are not even connected to a film, Naturally it is regrettable.
If there is anything to celebrate, it is very likely that we will never see such a disappointing "X-Men" or "Fantastic Four" again. In the hands of Disney and Kevin Fitch, the world of mutants will never be as dark and oppressive as Zach Schneider's monitors; this is not bad news, nor is it good news.
【related suggestion】
"Large Group"
"Super Power Out of Control"
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