Oct 16 2008
The Mutant Chronicles
Dir: Simon Hunter
Writ: Philip Eisner
- Thomas Jane … Maj. ‘Mitch’ Hunter
- Ron Perlman … Brother Samuel
- Devon Aoki … Cpl. Valerie Duval
- Sean Pertwee … Capt. Nathan Rooker
- Benno Fürmann … Lt. Maximillian von Steiner
- John Malkovich … Constantine
- Anna Walton … Severian
- Tom Wu … Cpl. Juba Kim Wu
- Steve Toussaint … Capt. John McGuire
- Luis Echegaray … Cpl. Jesus ‘El Jesus’ de Barrera
- Pras … Captain Michaels
Okay so I knew this was going to be rubbish. But then again look at that cast. How could I resist? And to be honest I was expecting something resembling a plot to show up somewhere. It never did. And without a plot it is pretty hard to have characters that have any motivation for anything they do. Although in fairness these all were such walking stereotypes that you needed no motivation. They even had one of the black guys die first! How clichéd is that?
In case you were wondering the plot was supposed to be about some machine, sent by the “enemy”[1] which transformed the near dead into mutants who do nothing but kill, and bring back others for the machine to turn. Exposition[2] tells us that after the last ice-age the machine was defeated, temporarily, by being hidden under ground. But since then, this is the year 2707, man has forgotten what once he knew. Oh yeah, and all the world has been taken over by four corporations who are continually at war with one another. I suppose that is as good a reason as any for soldiers to be milling about.
Anyways thats a whole heap of backstory to explain away a mess of a story that really didn’t need it. They coulda just started off with the machine. But whatever. It is their mess. And boy oh boy is it ever a mess.
Plus, with Irish. A weird-ass version of Ár n-Athair[3] But still. Irish[4]
So with all that negativity you can just tell that I’m going to say I hated it, can’t you? 
But I didn’t. Yes it was pish. Utter pish. But so pish it was fun. And I think it might possibly be incredibly improved by the imbibing of alcohol before watching. So that’d be my recommendation, go get hammered, then watch. You’ll love it.
Oh, I almost forgot, apart from some ropey special effects it does look quite cool. I’m a fan of the whole steampunk look, and while this isn’t quite that, it does have a cool world war one vibe to it. So that’s pretty nifty.
Writ & Dir: Neil Marshall