Review | The New Mutants movie review: X-Men spin-off is even worse than you expected

Set in a containment facility for young mutants, this coming-of-age tale has a baffling story line, a cynical subplot, and an awful ending

Blu Hunt plays the central character, Anya Taylor-Joy has some fun playing bitchy blonde Illyana Rasputin, and the X-Men barely get a look-in

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Blu Hunt and Charlie Heaton in a still from The New Mutants (category IIA), directed by Josh Boone. Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor-Joy co-star.

Published: 2:46pm, 31 Aug 2020Updated: 4:01pm, 31 Aug 2020

1.5/5 stars

After rumours of reshoots, multiple delays, a studio buy-out and now a global pandemic, the fact we’re seeing Josh Boone’s The New Mutants is something of a minor miracle. Quietly ushered out by Disney, which inherited the movie during the acquisition of 20th Century Fox, Boone’s not-so-new Mutants is an anodyne X-Men spin-off with very little going for it.

Marvel’s mutant hero franchise has been a patchy series at best. For every high (X2, Days of Future Past , Logan ), there’s been some incredible lows (The Last Stand, Apocalypse , Dark Phoenix ). Largely set in an asylum for new mutants, this coming-of-age saga falls into the latter category, despite a watchable performance or two.

The central figure is Dani Moonstone (Blu Hunt), newly admitted to a facility designed to contain young mutants who have yet to understand their powers. Running the joint is Dr Reyes (Alice Braga), keeping them under strict observation with surveillance cameras, microphones and, if they really get out of hand, force fields. “This isn’t a hospital,” Dani is told. “It’s a cage.”

Cheyenne Indian by birth, Dani arrives after an incident that has seen the loss of her father and others on her reservation. Her fellow mutants in lockdown also hold on to their traumas like PTSD patients. Some, like bitchy blonde Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), willingly give up their secrets – a sword-conjuring sorceress, she’s killed 18 men. Others – like Brazilian rich kid Roberto (Henry Zaga) – are more guarded.