The New Mutants- April 3rd 2020
Khalil’s (@alilreview) alternative: Fast Color
Available: Amazon Prime
Original Release: April 19th 2019
Director: Julia Hart
Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, Christopher Denham, David Strathairn
Poor New Mutants, that movie just can’t seem to catch a break. The alternative X-Men series with a planned horror twist based on the famed “Demon Bear” story from the comics had promise. But, every time we think the movie is about to come out, some sort of delay causes us to have to wait. At first, there were rumors that the initial cut of the movie didn’t test well with audiences, so there was a delay with planned reshoots on the horizon. Then, Disney purchased Fox and it once again delayed and thought never to come out. Then the planned release was to come last week, but then coronavirus came and pretty much ensured we wouldn’t be seeing it anytime soon. So what streaming alternatives would we have that could center on the fears of having superpowers could replace The New Mutants for our viewing pleasure??? I give you Fast Color, currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
Fast Color focuses on Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a young woman who has superpowers that she fully cannot control. When she has seizures, they cause earthquakes. She has government scientists on her trail, because, of course, they want to study her/cut her up to see what makes her tick. This leads her to go home to her estranged mother (Lorraine Toussaint) and her daughter she left behind. Fast Color is probably the best X-Men movie not called X2 as it explores the danger and anxiety of being “different” and not being able to control your powers, but at its heart, the movie is about family and righting wrongs from the past. Fast Color probably would have been a bigger box office draw, if some small film called Avengers: Endgame didn’t come out a week after its release and cause the movie to prematurely leave theaters. Now that it’s on Amazon, you owe it to yourself to give it a look and once again Gugu Mbatha-Raw continues to excel and Lorraine Toussaint delivers a hell of a performance
