“The New Mutants” (M) * and a half

YOU might be forgiven for asking, what was writer/director Josh Boone trying to achieve with this, his third movie for the big screen.

Box-office takings? Unlikely. There’s nothing in its 94-minute run time that even the world’s most bestest public-relations flack could inflate its reputation into a crowd pleaser for all audience tastes.

Dramatic impact? Maybe. But only for the audience cohort that wants to be energised by stories that at best are scary, at worst, silly.

Full of big stars? I don’t pretend to know the names of every up-and-coming young hopeful fresh out of American drama school but I’ve not heard of any member of the small cast of “The New Mutants”. Which doesn’t mean that some of them may make it big in future; but on the strength of their performances here, that seems improbable and/or impossible.

So, what’s it about. A young woman is running through a winter storm, pursued by unknown people who may wish her harm. She takes shelter in an old hospital building, where she is classed as suffering an emotional condition and becomes one of seven patients, all with their own medical problems, all anxious to get back into the outside community regardless of their wellness. 

And the hospital staff. You’d need to be desperate before you’d let the only one visible, qualified medico prescribe any medicine or perform any medical procedure on the sacred temple that is your body. Or call for help from any of the small group of tall skinny-as-rakes male attendants with strange-shaped heads. 

The building’s more than a little dodgy, too. 

And there’s a bear out there. Enormous. Red-eyed, bad mannered, worse tempered. Never opening doors, instead smashing them and the adjacent walls down to create openings wide enough to allow it through.

You might classify “The New Mutants” as a sci-fi horror fantasy. Choose one.

At all cinemas