Mutant Chronicles (DVD)

...thinks he can stop the mutant scourge. He is keeper of the Chronicles, a book that prophesies the rise of the mutants and talks of the 'Deliverer', who will destroy them. Samuel believes he is the Deliverer and recruits Mitch and a group of other like-minded soldiers to journey deep into the earth to save humanity from the mutant hordes.

This is Scottish director Simon Hunter's third feature and it is so thoroughly dreadful that it ...
...Visually he is trying to combine the look of Zach Helm's "300" with imagery from communist propaganda posters. Sadly he doesn't have a big enough budget to accommodate his ambitions. The effects work is appalling; the mutants amount to a small group of men in dodgy rubber prostheses mincing about trying to look menacing and failing miserably. The backdrops are often badly matted in so they look entirely fake. The real sets look cheap and ... more

The world's natural resources have been exhausted and the planet is ruled by four competing corporations; Capitol, Bauhaus, Mishima and Imperial. Their soldiers wage war on their behalf, trying to gain new ground. But when a battle between Capitol and Bauhaus soldiers breaks an ancient stone seal, the earth has more to worry about as the planet is overrun by hideous mutants with bone blades that grow out of their arms. Veteran Capitol soldier Mitch Hunter escapes but his best friend Nathan Rooker is taken. The mutants multiply and destroy all before them. Constantine, leader of the Corporations is approached by head of the Brotherhood, Brother Samuel who thinks he can stop the mutant scourge. He is keeper of the Chronicles, a book that prophesies the rise of the mutants and talks of the 'Deliverer', who will destroy them. Samuel believes he is the Deliverer and recruits Mitch and a group of other like-minded soldiers to journey deep into the earth to save humanity from the mutant hordes.

This is Scottish director Simon Hunter's third feature and it is so thoroughly dreadful that it might stop him from finding a fourth to work on. Visually he is trying to combine the look of Zach Helm's "300" with imagery from communist propaganda posters. Sadly he doesn't have a big enough budget to accommodate his ambitions. The effects work is appalling; the mutants amount to a small group of men in dodgy rubber prostheses mincing about trying to look menacing and failing miserably. The backdrops are often badly matted in so they look entirely fake. The real sets look cheap and naff - the journey down into the earth is plagued by badly plastered climbing walls and polystyrene rocks are apparently found in abundance in the bowels of the earth! Once we get inside the giant machine, it's as though we've been transported back in time to the set of Duran Duran's "Wild Boys" video, this time in gloriously jerky stop-motion CGI.

The production design is inconsistent throughout. The architecture is a mishmash of gothic and art deco and machines of war have an Eastern Bloc industrialist aesthetic. We see images of what appear to be 1940s evacuees running through the streets to be airlifted out. The technology is retro-futuristic, echoing the ideas of steam-punk posited by authors such as China Miéville. The members of the team are introduced with on-screen files that have a parchment texture, as does the introduction, which appears to be played out on a linen backdrop. Hunter tries to pep up the movie with shaky hand-held camerawork that just makes it look like he couldn't afford a Steadicam. The players are treated like props to the action, so they aren't developed sufficiently, or indeed, at all. The attempts at group bonding are pitiful, feeling perfunctory at best, failing to expand on the threadbare dialogue. He has no idea how to create or sustain tension, so it never feels like the characters are in danger, making it increasingly difficult to empathise with them. Fight scenes are choppy and badly choreographed so you can't really see what's going on, but what you glimpse looks crap.

The director manages to treat his audience like idiots by holding their hands every step of the way while also managing to be infuriatingly vague. He doesn't flesh out the characters or explore the religion of the Brotherhood or the idea of a world ruled by corporations instead of nations. The result is a frustrating and utterly pointless hundred-and-eleven minutes of science fiction mumbo-jumbo.

The screenplay by "Event Horizon" scribe Philip Eisner takes a grab-bag of ideas and fails to put them into a workable framework. He can't decide what the movie is - whether it's action, horror, science fiction or fantasy. He puts a load of mismatched soldiers in an apocalyptic situation with poorly thought out religious subplots. If the story delved deeper into the Brotherhood and explained their beliefs, or explored the Corporations and the resulting society perhaps the film would make more sense. But Eisner never follows a plot strand to its logical conclusion, instead spewing out half-baked ideas left, right and centre that never coalesce into a single narrative. If the Brotherhood has known of the seal over the machine for thousands of years, why hasn't it protected it better? Why are soldiers from different Corporations willing to work together if they are sworn enemies? How do the Corporations differ from each other anyway? Why would the monks assume that something that comes from the machine is meant to destroy it? Why does everyone keep saying Mitch just has to have faith when what he really needs is a large explosive device? Why are we shown a couple of evacuees running for their lives when we don't know who they are?

The characterisation is laughable; Mitch is a generic action hero whose loyalty to his dead friend's family is borne of nothing concrete and involves him giving them a couple of tickets off the planet in a pitiful attempt to make him appear more human. His colleagues on the mission to destroy the machine are a bunch of interchangeable plot motors whose sole function is to die in a series of gory and underwhelming fashions to make Mitch look harder by comparison. But they barely have a personality between them. Their stilted conversations about the recipients of their tickets are a transparent ruse to make them more sympathetic. But it fails because simply saying they have families or loved ones they want to survive doesn't mean anything without real emotion to back it up. Brother Samuel is supposed to be a man who has devoted himself to religion, but all he does is tell people to have faith instead of giving them comfort or referring them to the tenets of his beliefs. The script puts the 'dire' in dialogue. One character says "I just don't know what I'm going to tell my little girl…" (even though said sprog is sitting in earshot) and the main character tries to make a catchphrase of "I'm not paid to believe, I'm paid to f*** s*** up!"

Thomas Jane looks like a constipated version of Christopher Lambert as Mitch Hunter. He's square-jawed and heroic but only in the blandest possible way. He does little more than hit his marks and say his lines and fails to adhere to even the most basic fight choreographies. I wonder if Sean Pertwee checks every script he's handed to see which page he's going to die on because I've yet to see him survive a film. He fares no better as Cockney soldier Nathan Rooker. I think Ron Perlman is essaying an Irish accent as Brother Samuel, but it's so mangled it's hard to tell. He doesn't so much perform as intone his lines, but there doesn't appear to be anything else going on with the character. John Malkovich is slumming it as Corporation leader Constantine, coming across as vaguely noble but relying heavily on his normal staccato delivery. Devon Aoki is more wooden than Sherwood Forest as Valerie Duval and Anna Walton is rather too fragile to convince as an almost unstoppable swordswoman.

The original music by Richard Wells is overly melodramatic, depending heavily on rising brass and drums to try to convey excitement and drama. Requiem choruses are intended to give an epic quality to the film. There are syrupy strings for allegedly emotional moments, strutting strings for the enemy's approach and sweeping strings for the inevitable victory. It is simply too big to fit the otherwise weak production.

"Mutant Chronicles" is a load of science fiction dross that hasn't been thought out well enough by anyone involved. The direction is well below par, the effects are pitiful, the writing doesn't know whether it's coming or going and the acting is dreadful to a man. This is the sort of film that will only appeal to you if you have absolutely no standards when it comes to film-watching or you are exceptionally drunk when you watch it. I can see no reason to waste your time or money on this abortion of an action movie. Even if you are best friends with someone in the cast or crew, do not be persuaded to part with your hard-earned cash to see it. In fact, don't even bother if it's on the graveyard slot on terrestrial TV. You'll just want those hundred-and-eleven minutes of your life back. 

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