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.

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 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?

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.