5.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.1 |
Five young mutants, just discovering their abilities while held in a secret facility against their will, fight to escape their past sins and save themselves.
Starring: Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu HuntAction | 100% |
Comic book | 91% |
Horror | 5% |
Coming of age | 1% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Region free
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
The New Mutants purports to be the (supposed) last film in the now multitudinous X-Men franchise. In that regard, and given the fact that in at least one of the graphic novel forebears to this film the so-called “new mutants” were part of the Xavier Institute, and further given the fact that Professor X himself was memorably portrayed by Sir Patrick Stewart, it might be argued that this outing could just have easily been titled X-Men: The Next Generation. That hopefully obvious joking aside, however, The New Mutants is arguably lacking any actor of Stewart’s gravitas, and it is undeniably lacking Stewart himself. The allusion to Star Trek: The Next Generation is perhaps doubly inapt in that the Roddenberry "sequel" was deemed by many to be at least as good if not better than the original Star Trek, while The New Mutants is probably not going to be seen as a high watermark in the X-Men franchise by very many, if any at all. This is a kind of sad way for the venerable series to peter out, and, yes, I'm sure there are some fans of the franchise asking, "Wasn't X-Men: Dark Phoenix 4K sad enough?". But the fact that this film sat on the shelf for years and was reportedly pretty drastically retooled along the way might suggest that even the powers that be at 20th Century (which was probably still 20th Century Fox when the film was in production) knew they had a less than riveting outing on their hands.
The New Mutants is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Disney / Buena Vista and 20th Century with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb lists the Panavision Millennium DXL as the camera of choice, with the DI being finished at 4K. The lack of consistent special effects in this film may be a slight detriment to some expecting another X-Men x-travaganza (sorry), but if seemingly more "mundane" a lot of the time, the imagery in this presentation is consistently sharp and well defined for the most part. The opening tornado scenes suffers from a lack of shadow detail, and the CGI "snow" isn't particularly believable, but once things move on to the more practical sets of the hospital, fine detail improves markedly in everything from textures of fabrics to even things like background wallpaper or grimy metallic surfaces on the doors of cells. As with the opening sequence, some uses of CGI aren't overly sharp and may work against any "fear factor". There are some interesting grading choices, including some arguably rote uses of deeper blue tones, but there are also some more unusual almost greenish or teal hues added which surprisingly don't detrimentally affect fine detail levels most of the time.
While the 4K UHD presentation of this film offers a nicely rendered Dolby Atmos track, I really don't think there's much if anything to complain about with regard to this disc's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track. While the showiest moments here are arguably the bookending sequences, with the opening tornado and the closing showdown with the Demon Bear, there is rather well designed surround activity even in what amounts to the prison of the hospital. There's some nice directionality offered with regard to things like voices emanating from nearby cells to the clang of the automatic doors closing and locking. Both the Demon Bear and some of the other nightmares that occur offer moments of panning effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional subtitles in several languages are available.
In his review of the film, my colleague Brian Orndorf likened this outing to a television pilot, and there is a kind of rote, formulaic quality to this enterprise that is very small screen like. The emphasis on female characters may appeal to some, but there is so much left unexplained and so much else that never really makes great sense that the film never really amounts to anything other than a kind of doleful coda to a once mighty franchise. Technical merits are solid for those who are considering a purchase.
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