Welcome Back TOVers, AP3X here with a sneak peek at Mutant Chronicles by director Simon Hunter. There will be some spoilers below, however as this movie isn’t even out yet I will try and keep the spoilers and major plot points to a minimum.
So we open up with a brief explanation on what this world is like. During the dawn of man a “machine” fell out of the sky and produced monstrous “mutants” who went around killing everything in sight. Some guy decided to join the tribes of man into one fighting force and end the threat of the machine. They did and sealed it away underground. An order of monks were founded to pass on the knowledge of the machine and how to defeat it. Fast forward to 2707. Governments have been replaced by corporations. The corporations fight wars over resources. The “American” government…er….”corporation” is fighting the German govermen…er…”corporation”. In the ensuing battle the ancient seal that housed the “Machine” is broken. It isn’t long before zombies… I mean “mutants” are running around killing everything. The Corporations decide it’s best to just leave Earth. A monk from the previously mentioned order tries to persuade them to stay and defeat mankind’s greatest enemy…the Machine!!! It is decided that a small group will infiltrate the underground lair of the Machine and blow it up. A small strike team is formed and they go and try to blow up the Machine.
That’s all I can really say without giving away too much of the movie. The effect for the mutants are pretty damn terrible. The acting for the most part is wooden all across the board. This is one of those movies that if it was on and nothing else was, I’d watch , but otherwise I’d just flip past. Don’t spend your money on this one. This is strictly watch on Cable only and even then probably not.
Overall: This movie gets a 1.5 out of 5.
Now with that of the way, on to the fun stuff. There will be a lot more spoilers below. Honestly though nothing in this movie should surprise you one bit. I saw everything coming miles away. This movie wins AP3X’s MOST PREDICTABLE MOVIE EVER award.
…ANYWHOO…..
The Good:
-Honestly it was refreshing to see Ron Pearlman play a religious goody goody. It’s so different from his past roles, I was honestly just waiting for him to slip up, and go into badass at some point.
-Thomas Jane continues to do a passable job as an action hero. He was pretty good here, and decent in The Punisher. I know what you’re thinking… Decent in the Punisher?? Yeah see if you watch that movie pretending that he’s not supposed to be Frank Castle the Punisher….well it’s still pretty bad….. Yeah nevermind. Anyway Thomas Jane is getting better as an action star.
-I really liked the sound effects of the guns. It just stuck with me the whole movie through.
-The fact that swords were useful. I like swords, and making them actually useful in combat in this world is a plus with me. I’m just phishing at this point for more “Good” points.
The Bad:
-Corporations??? Lame… Especially considering they were basically governments. What’s the difference? If you’re not going to explain the difference, don’t bother calling them something other than what they are…..governments.
-This movie should’ve been called Zombie Chronicles cause they sure as hell weren’t mutants. An organism is a mutant when his DNA is changed to differ from that of parent species. A Zombie is a reanimated human corpse. The mutants in this film are……..REANIMATED HUMAN CORPSES. Which makes them….??? ZOMBIES!!!!
-Doing some research on the movie I found out it’s based on a Tabletop RPG of the same name. In the game the Machine screws with technology and electricity in general. This is the reason everything is steam powered. It was never elaborated on in the movie, and given that you’re wondering why the hell these people have steam driven airplanes and spaceships??? Wait…..spaceships???? Yeah you read that right. Spaceships. WTF??!!! Explain how you’re going to another planet and going to colonize it with your steam tech please. I can’t wait to hear that shit.
-The bomb. Oh god the bomb. How the hell do they know what that thing does? They’re going there and they’re the hope for humanity and they’re carrying this freaking disc thing that they think is a bomb, and they have no idea what it really does, or how to activate it in any case. Really??? Reeeeeeaaaaaaalllllllyyyyyyy??? That’s what the writers went with?? That’s what the best hope for humanity is ……disc thing that came off the Machine in the first place??!!!!! I actually had to go and look up who wrote this crap. His name is Philip Eisner. Aaaaahhh the fabulous writer of Event Horizon and the Cable TV special Firestarter 2: Rekindled. Someone needs to light his goddamn computer or typewriter or whatever he write with on fire and sling it into a black hole. Never write again. Hollywood listen here. If this man gives you a script for a movie, slap him with it and light it on fire. You are only helping humanity.
The Ugly:
-The Zombie/Mutant makeup was terrible. ESPECIALLY Ron Pearlman’s Zombie/Mutant makeup. I swear I was actually thinking to myself, wow for the most identifiable Zombie/Mutant they decided to go with worse special effects??? Go FX team!!! (That was sarcasm)
-There’s just a colossal waste of talent in this film, and that sucks. A sci fi movie with John Malkovich, Ron Pearlman, Thomas Jane, and Devon Aoki (Asian katana chick from Sin City) sounds like it would be awesome.
Wow ok after doing this review and really thinking about it, I amend my earlier statement. I wouldn’t even watch this on cable.