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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Siriel
Ichigo: What even *are* you?!
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