BY CONTRIBUTING WRITER NICK RAMEY:
It had been one of the movies I was looking forward too on and off since I posted the trailer on my website. I later found out this was a case of “Trailer Better Than Movie” trailers. While perusing the racks of DVDs at Best Buy I came across Mutant Chronicles. They only had the Director’s Cut, but it had Thomas Jane (of the good Punisher), Ron Perlman (of the latest Hellboy) and John Malkovich (of the good everything he has done). So with a skip in my step I bought it, not expecting to critique it on here, although I should have known better.
First hint of a downhill spiral? Ron Perlman begins narrating. Never a good sign. The year is 2707 and the earth is split into four factions or in this case…four Giant Corporations.
Open scene…think World War I European Trench Warfare….with really, really big guns. Everything from the helmets to the uniforms the crumpled cigarettes everyone is bumming.
Unbeknownst to the weary soldiers one of the really big guns opens a door that has been sealed forever ago by a group of monks sworn to protect it. It crumples to the ground and within mere moments…all the soldiers save two, our hero, Thomas Jane and the soldier he is saving have died. See the gruesome picture below.
The pointy arm thing belongs to one of these guys…the mutants.
Cut immediately to the snowy mountainside of whoknowswhere where an old man is bent over a morse code transmitter getting news from somewhere that the world is ending. Handing the message to a young lad he tells him to deliver it to the monks. The boy crosses the frozen mountains of whoknowswhere to the monks who have sworn to guard the sacred tomb. Apparently they have no idea anything happened and Ron Perlman, head MonkMan, begins preparing.
He has a meeting with John Malkovich, who is the dying head of one of the corporations and begs him for some men to stop this evil. Instead Malkovich decides to evacuate the planet using a lottery. After this there is some very random yelling and flailing of arms by Perlman who is trying to appear upset but doesn’t pull it off at all.
After watching a few moments of mayhem and people crashing and burning he decides to give some passes to Perlman who will use them as bargaining chips to get a team together. Malkovich stays behind and gets slaughtered by mutants. Exit cue Malkovich…time in movie = < 5 minutes.
This has all taken place in the first 20 mins of the movie…from war to earth annihilation in just a matter of minutes. Unfortunately the filmmakers lived so the movie continued.
The team is assembled as MonkMan begins to tell about the prophecy of destroying the Mutants.
At this point in the film it becomes painstakingly obvious the filmmakers are trying to mix 300 with Equilibrium by crushing the black (to make it look more graphic novelly) and highlight every red color possible…from the MonkRobes to the emblems in the uniforms.
MonkMan’s assistant takes over from here out and tells that they have a bomb they have been storing since they originally locked away the mutants the first time. All they have to do is plug it up to the machine and turn the key. Problem is nobody knows where they key is…or what it looks like except for the drawing.
The team receives some sacred swords from the last mutant encounter, loads up and heads for the mouth of the mutant cavern. As they travel by air, land and ancient elevator. Each time they change scenes one of the team heroically dies tragically. They encounter evil soldiers bartering for safe passages, shot by Thomas Jane, and in the short time they live, quickly try to develop a bond..but never pull it off.
After the elevator scene where the team must plunge a mere 60 stories underground, fight off scores of mutant thingies, killing them by not kindness, but bombs, grenades, flame throwers and …you guessed it …. an ancient sword or two.
By the time the machine is reached MonkMan Perlman is died and Mutant-ized and and another blows himself up to cause a cave in so no more mutants can pass. They find the machine they must face a Mutant Perlman who kills one of the last remaining of the team, who happens to be a fellow warrior monk chick.
This leaves Perlman and Jane to fight to the death. Jane who just missed becoming Mutant-ized moments before discovers the key sure does look like the end of the sword and stabs MuntantMonkMan through the chest turns the key causing the machine not to blow up…but take off. Yes…it was a space ship.
Thats it…all over. Spaceship takes off…
SO WHATS THE MUCK??
Graphics: I already mentioned the washed out tones of everything but red…including the blood. Which looks like it was put in using Microsoft Paint onto the actuall celluloid itself.
Storyline: I found out accidentally that Mutant Chronicles was a “Pen and Paper Role Playing Game”. It spawned card games, mini wargames, video games, novels and comic books….
Overall: No sense of linear time, graphics any two year old can do, and severe over acting.
I love it 
