Movie Reviews: Mutant Chronicles | Simon Hunter

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 9 October 2008

Invasion plot that’s bound to alienate

MUTANT CHRONICLES
Directed by Simon Hunter
Certificate 15

QUITE how an actor with the standing and talents of John Malkovich got involved in this weird future caper I’m not sure, but it’s a “sack the agent” type of movie.
Mutant Chronicles is an odd sci-fi adventure, where computer nerds have bathed characters in blood and gore and had a high old time working out computer graphics to display unfeasibly bloody deaths. For its sheer mindlessness, it’s the type of thing that should prompt hand wringing among the torch carriers for Mary Whitehouse.
Its worth trying to explain the ridiculous semi-Tolkien plot, as it helps underline quite how fundamentally awful the whole shebang is.
Here goes: an alien “machine” lands on Earth. The aliens on board kill humans to feed to said “machine”. Life on Earth is saved when it is buried underground by a clique of sword-wielding Catholic monks.
But a few hundred years later, humans accidentally unearth the machine while lobbing shells at each other during a bloody, Western Front-style European war. The order of monks then have to recruit a Dirty Dozen-style team of various racial stereotypes to plant a bomb at the centre of the machine and save the world.
Moments offer interest. It starts with some well put together CGI stuff – the city scapes are vaguely reminiscent of Fritz Lang, and the vehicles and guns – all powered by coal and steam – crank gorgeously about.
For about 10 minutes I hoped this attention to detail – with Art Deco interiors and Gormenghast gothic exteriors – would reveal a hidden depth to the film.
Instead we have a bunch of macho mugs fighting vicious mutants with spikes on the end of their arms, perfect for slashing and slitting.
I am clearly not the demographic this nonsense is aimed at.
But I cannot imagine even the most disturbed young mind, brought up on a diet of vile shoot ’em up computer games, finding this anything but bogus.
The script flips from the cod-Shakespearean to strings of swear words that make the characters sound like Gordon Ramsay on amphetamines.
Malkovich is joined by Primrose Hill resident Sean Pertwee. Both must have better things to do with their time.

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