Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[FistofIron]

So, Roberto - originally - was quite dark-skinned. The actor chosen, while Brazillian, is...not.

Now, I've seen some people argue that there are depictions of Roberto in Marvel that are also quite pale. This is basically using Marvel's white-washing of Roberto to justify the movie, which doesn't help at all.

They’ve sadly done the same thing with Cecilia Reyes. I do love that actress but she’s way lighter than her character should be.

[FistofIron]

I’m really digging this fight in Kengan.

[Sharpandpointies]

They’ve sadly done the same thing with Cecilia Reyes. I do love that actress but she’s way lighter than her character should be.

There are a bunch of them it seems (three), and they've completely dropped one of the central characters to boot. Who just happens to be an Asian lesbian.

[The Chou Lives]

There are a bunch of them it seems (three), and they've completely dropped one of the central characters to boot. Who just happens to be an Asian lesbian.

Asian lesbian? Wasn’t she in DP2? Could be why the drop as she was used there and no confusion as the stories are different?

[Sharpandpointies]

This is the Director, Josh Boone, on why he didn't have a dark-skinned Roberto.

Boone: There was nobody who hold a candle to Henry. It’s like maybe if Henry didn’t exist, I would have found somebody who was darker skinned who exemplified what I needed. But it was never about the color of their skin for me.

io9: Did that just not fit into your vision for Roberto’s story in the film?

Boone: I didn’t care so much about the racism I’ve heard about in Brazil, about light-skinned versus dark-skinned. To me, it was I wanted to represent Brazil in a positive way and I wanted to find somebody who seems like he could look like a guy who’s had the silver spoon in his mouth, who has like a really rich dad and [Henry] just exemplified all these things.

Emphasis mine.

This is Josh Boone:

josh_boone-616x347.jpg

You know, I cannot for the life of me IMAGINE why it wasn't about the colour of the skin for this guy, or why he didn't really care about the racism in Brazil.

Also, Roberto's character in the comics finds out about his powers because why? Because he gets attacked by a bunch of racists. Which this guy states he doesn't care about.

[Sharpandpointies]

Asian lesbian? Wasn’t she in DP2? Could be why the drop as she was used there and no confusion as the stories are different?

Completely different character.

[The Chou Lives]

Completely different character.

Was just checking. Still the X Community gets done dirty a lot of the time in movies. Like Darwin in First Class.

[Guy1]

Academia Spoilers!

spoilers:

"Aizawa's down!" "Need a Rez!" "Out of Mana!" Shigaraki: "Guess who's back at full power b-ches?"

end of spoilers

[Tami]

This is the Director, Josh Boone, on why he didn't have a dark-skinned Roberto.



Emphasis mine.

This is Josh Boone:

josh_boone-616x347.jpg

You know, I cannot for the life of me IMAGINE why it wasn't about the colour of the skin for this guy, or why he didn't really care about the racism in Brazil.

Also, Roberto's character in the comics finds out about his powers because why? Because he gets attacked by a bunch of racists. Which this guy states he doesn't care about.

Wow, that just wrong on so many levels.

[Len Ikari145]

This is the Director, Josh Boone, on why he didn't have a dark-skinned Roberto.



Emphasis mine.

This is Josh Boone:

josh_boone-616x347.jpg

You know, I cannot for the life of me IMAGINE why it wasn't about the colour of the skin for this guy, or why he didn't really care about the racism in Brazil.

Also, Roberto's character in the comics finds out about his powers because why? Because he gets attacked by a bunch of racists. Which this guy states he doesn't care about.

Wow, that just wrong on so many levels.

Wow, **** you too, Boone. I'm glad that this is the last X-Men movie by Fox before the Disney Reboot.

In other news, Netflix is making a Resident Evil series starring Wesker....'s Teenage Mutant Ninja Daughters.

[Siriel]

There are a bunch of them it seems (three), and they've completely dropped one of the central characters to boot. Who just happens to be an Asian lesbian.

I can at least say that the bolded probably played no part in her exclusion - spoilers:

Danielle and Rahne are the main romantic pairing of the movie. It's not a huge focus or anything, but they get the stereotypical romance framing shots and kiss on camera.

end of spoilers

Longer review post coming.

[Siriel]

Okay, The New Mutants review (part 1). I'll spoiler stuff that wasn't in promotional materials as best I can - if you're bothered by spoilers that are in trailers, stop reading this post after the Overall section. I make no apology for how centered on Illyana my review is; she's by far my favourite character from the team so I paid more attention to her.

Also I only saw the movie once and some of the accents were a bit tough for me to make out so apologies if I get any stuff wrong.

Overall: The movie is pretty good. The fact that it went through a lot of rewriters and reshoots shows (more on that later), but overall I think it holds up pretty well. It's very, very different from the formulaic Marvel movies though, so don't go in expecting a ton of action. Thankfully that also means the dialogue is more varied too. Unsurprisingly the acting is good aside from Danielle's father at the start, and I want to especially praise the physical language, especially from Illyana and the Smiling Men. The Smiling Men are the first time I see what I'd describe as unsettlingly smooth movements in a movie. Illyana's actress said that Illyana was her first role who stomps into rooms and it shows that she had good directions in how she's meant to behave. Overall I'm impressed that there wasn't really a scene where I wondered why I was seeing it; the 100 minutes length passes quickly.

Also there's no end credits scene so don't wait for it if you go see it in theaters.

The Setting: The movie handles its setting pretty well. It assumes you already know what mutants are in Marvel, but doesn't quite fit into any of the movie continuities as far as I remember. It's established that the X-Men are considered well-known superheroes and led by Xavier (indirectly; they guess that Xavier is behind the facility they're in by doing his iconic telepathy pose with a hand to the temple). Otherwise the movie doesn't concern itself too much with what happens outside the facility.
spoilers:

But the facility is ultimately run by Essex Corps and intended to snatch new mutants after they have a traumatic experience to try to shape them into agents, which would presumably have been a plot thread in sequels.

end of spoilers

Special Effects: They aren't as extensive as in most Marvel movies, but honestly they're pretty great in my opinion. There's some honestly great imagery, and only one shot of the Demon Bear felt pretty fake to me because they lingered on it too long. spoilers:

Also the fight between Magik and the Demon Bear, what little we see of it, is great with the scenery turning into Limbo every time she successfully strikes it. Also very neat image when Danielle banishes the Demon Bear's darkness; I saw what they were going for immediately and it still looked good.

end of spoilers

Choreography: This isn't a fighting movie, if you want complex fighting moves look elsewhere. There's only a single short conventional fight scene. I would actually say it's pretty faithful to comics in the way it focuses on showing one cool moment rather than caring too much about exact movements.

Shooting: A lot of the movie is very dark, illumination-wise. There wasn't really a moment where that stopped me from seeing what the scene wanted to show me though, so I think it worked out. It also makes very bright scenes stand out like Roberto's fire and spoilers:

the ending where they're out of the facility.

end of spoilers

Characters: I don't really remember that much from the early New Mutants comic, and I think trying to fully replicate the personalities of characters from the 80s would have made the movie feel pretty awkward to a modern audience, so I'll mostly focus on how they came off in the movie. As is obvious from trailers there's also a theme of character facing their fears in the movie, so I'll comment on how well each character arc was handled there in my opinion.

Roberto: His reworked backstory is that he burnt his girlfriend by accident when his powers first activated. He apparently burnt her to death which traumatized him, though spoilers:

that might have been an Essex lie to convince him he had no place outside the facility.

end of spoilers He doesn't get to show off his powers (which are the same as in the comics) a lot, though the fire effects were I thought very good. Sadly his super form only makes very short appearances.
His character arc is a bit more indirect than the others spoilers:

he gets a bit more comfortable with physical touch when stressed over the movie, rather than dramatically confronting his trauma. Also he's confirmed to like Illyana to an extent (he has an illusion of making out with her), but it doesn't seem reciprocated. Maybe it's a relationship that would have developed in sequels

end of spoilers

Sam: Same powers as in the comics too. His reworked backstory is spoilers:

that he caused a collapse at the mine when he had a fit of claustrophobia there. It's implied his father died in the collapse, though I'm not totally sure.

end of spoilers His character arc is... hit and miss for me. spoilers:

His nightmare of the mine is very well-done, but bizarrely the end of the movie frames it as if him using his powers was a sign of him overcoming his trauma, when the issue was never that he couldn't use his powers but rather that he was self-destructive. Something got lost in a rewrite, I imagine.

end of spoilers

Overall Sam and Roberto kinda take a backseat to the girls. They're definitely still there; you couldn't remove them and not change the movie, but they definitely more minor. spoilers:

Also Magik hijacks one of the few cool scenes they could have had when they get ready to take on the Smiling Men and just kills them all herself. And while I like Magik, I felt kinda cheated. At least we get to see Roberto just destroy one of them when it jumpscares him earlier. Edit: Also both of them have some of the best done illusion scenes.

end of spoilers
Edit: Reflecting on it, the two guys got more screentime than I initially thought. Their scenes are just more casual I think.

Rahne: Powers same as in the comic, somehow Rahne walked away with a less dark backstory than she had in them. spoilers:

An insane preacher still tried to burn her for witchcraft, but he wasn't the one raising her and no mob helped him do it, nor was he her dad. She just went to see him after learning about her powers and he turned out to be crazy.

end of spoilers She gets a lot of screentime but I don't have that much to say about her. spoilers:

She's Danielle's love interest in the movie and brings in a religious element, but unlike the others she doesn't really have a big trauma to overcome. Her fear is, obviously, the insane preacher, but being afraid of someone who wants to burn you for witchcraft isn't much of a personality problem. She does have a sweet moment where she notes that while she's afraid of the preacher, that's different from being afraid of Dani (who showed it to her by accident), which I think would have been better if they'd spent at least a short moment having her reach that conclusion rather than just come out with it.

end of spoilers

[Siriel]

Part 2;

Danielle: The main character of the movie, she's an alright protagonist. spoilers:

Her powers are souped up from the comics; rather than illusions she actively brings people's worst fears into reality (temporarily, but they can deal real damage). This was presumably because they didn't want the Demon Bear to be an actually supernatural entity; instead it's just a manifestation of her own fears. She came to the facility after the reservation she lived in was wiped out, but it's ambiguous if it was destroyed by a natural disaster or the bear; she hears growls, but that could just be her being afraid. I think they kinda flubbed the ending of her character arc because while having her realize the bear is her own fears and resolving to confront them is good, ultimately Rahne fails to be the one to bring her out of her terror. Instead it's a random vision of her father - the worst actor in the movie, who only showed up for two minutes at the start. Come on, why not have it be the romantic interest that we've seen her hang out with all movie?

end of spoilers

Illyana: Is a jerk, to an hilarious extent. Not even evil like in the comics, she's just kind of really mean to Dani. spoilers:

And also take shots at her for being Indian? Which is just really weird because as far as I can tell Illyana is still from Russia; why does she give a damn about that? I guess it could just be that she was looking for anything to snipe the new person with and that was one of the two things she knew about Dani, which the movie kinda hints at when Danielle points out that Illyana's insults are really shallow and amount to comparing her with pop culture.

end of spoilers
They really want you to know she's badass, but I think they went a bit too far on her aggression.
spoilers:

She flat-out tries to cut Dani in half for making her angry early in the movie, and while Reyes stops her there's no hint that she would have stopped herself otherwise. It makes it kind of awkward to remember this when she sort of bonds with Dani as the movie nears its end. On the other hand the movie makes a pretty good job of showing that her aggression is her way of coping with her trauma, and she does decide to take on the Demon Bear alone by the end to let the others escape so it's not all she's portrayed as purely bad. They probably didn't think the scene I mention above through. Also despite being generally unstable she's the smartest person in the movie, realizing what kind of person Reyes is before the movie even starts and figuring out that all the weird stuff happening is caused by Danielle's powers before anyone else. Also I never knew i needed to see her running after a house-sized bear while shouting "COME BACK YOU COWARD!" until it happened.

end of spoilers
Her powers are handled kind of weirdly, but I like it. I really get the feeling they wanted to make another movie for her later.
spoilers:

Lockheed is a hand-puppet she uses to talk to herself with, and Limbo is a metaphor for a 'safe place' that she imagined when she was held by the people who're represented by the Smiling Men in Danielle's illusions, who she apparently killed as part of her escape. According to her she spent so much time in Limbo that it became real, and it's left unclear throughout the entire movie whether Lockheed can actually turn into a dragon from her powers or is just a puppet and she's imagining it. He only talks to her, only becomes real when she's alone or during her fight with the Demon Bear, and they get taken out by the same attack in that fight at which point he immediately reverts to a puppet and no one questions it. In proud (bad) New Mutants tradition, Illyana also creates a giant plothole in the movie because she can still teleport through Limbo and nothing is ever established to be stopping her from just teleporting away from the facility. Also unlike the others she's willing to kill and knows Reyes is evil, so you'd think she would have just killed her at some point to bring the forcefield down. I guess it could be reasoned that she has nowhere to go anyway. Overall it's left very ambiguous if she can do actual magic or she just has more than one mutant ability. Since the movie doesn't explain what kind of organization the Smiling Men belonged to or what it is that she's always drawing and writing everywhere, I imagine that was sequel materials. I don't mind though, ambiguity is better than overloading the movie with irrelevant stuff.

end of spoilers
Maybe surprisingly I don't love her fear arc.
spoilers:

She's afraid of the Smiling Men (fair) and freaks out, teleporting to Limbo when they try to attack her. Then after a few minutes she... comes back and slaughters them all, having apparently worked the fear out of her system offscreen? Boo.

end of spoilers

As a team:
I think the characters actually have a pretty good synergy together. They get along sometimes, don't in others, and honestly it feels pretty realistic. spoilers:

Though it feels really empty when Danielle says at the end that they worked together to break out of their cages, because most of their character development didn't really involve the others. Hell, Illyana's involved no one.

end of spoilers

Reyes: Sorry if you're a fan of hers in the comics. spoilers:

She's a straight up bad-guy working for Essex Corps, which explains why she's such a terrible psychiatrist throughout the movie. She ends up dying and isn't missed. I honestly don't remember much of comics Reyes but I think that's her powerset and then a completely different character?

end of spoilers

Conclusion: Honestly, it's better than it had any rights to be given its history. Not as good as I might have hoped, but then that's a high standard. I'll rewatch it with subtitles when I can to see what i missed, which is more than I can say of pretty much every other Marvel movie. Shame that it's almost guaranteed to not get any sequels because I really like the cast.

Relevance to Rumbles: Pretty much non-existent. There isn't much for quantifiable feats.

[FistofIron]

I’m interested. Thanks for the review.

[Cody]