The New Mutants
When money gets tight, assholes get loose, literally and figuratively. People sell their plasma, or worse, some pyramid scheme nutritional supplement. Coin, comic book, and antique dildo collections find new homes at pawn shops. The price of blowjobs and, yes, even anal drops dramatically as desperate folks try to make ends meet . . . by making ends meet.
You can understand why Marvel Studios, a Disney subsidiary, (Disney, in turn, being a subsidiary of Hydra, which is pretty goddam funny) just had to make the X-Men universe spinoff/youthful update The New Mutants. After years of bomb after bomb, Marvel was days away from having to shut down for good when . . . . Wait, what's that you say? Marvel flicks have made more than $22B dollars over the past decade or so? Billion, with a "b?" Well, fuck me.
If Marvel isn't broke as fuck, it has less excuse for releasing the superhero super-puke that is The New Mutants than Trump does for not conceding. And if you're going to make a cash grab as bold as when that stripper tried to steal my wallet during a lap dance, at least have the common fucking courtesy to put some effort into it.
A teenager improbably named Dani Moonstar (Blu "Mike" Hunt) lives through some sort of disaster and wakes up a prisoner in a psych ward of sorts for mutants just discovering their powers. Everyone is trying to figure out what Dani's power is. Until they do, and then it turns out to be so chum-flavored-scuba-suit stupid - and utterly useless - that everyone, including the audience, lets out a groan heard 'cross the cosmos.
Joining Dani are a fire guy, a werewolf, a human rocket, and a chick who taps the power of an imaginary world she created to grow armor. Only on one arm though. Sometimes with a sword. The HBIC (head bitch in charge) can create force fields. Sometimes. If you're starting to sense that the writers had no fucking idea what they were doing, you're picking up what I'm laying down.
The New Mutants did try one thing to set itself apart from the rest of the capes and cowls crowd. It fancies itself a horror movie, which it got half right. It may contain exactly zero scares, but it is fucking horrible.
November 27, 2020