Oh, what might have been.
This is not a good film, but wow, it might have been. I remember seeing early talk and clips for this over at io9; none of the commentary was positive. But somehow I was intrigued. So here it is on DVD and…well, it’s not that good a film. And yet.
The story goes that at the end of the ice age, a great machine fell onto earth and starting cranking out mutants. The ancient tribes of man united and buried the machine, sealing the mutants in. Fast forward to the dark future. The world is split between four corporations, fighting for the scraps of the planet. A battle between two of the corporations unseals the mutant machine, and the mayhem begins. The fate of the world rests with a small band of warriors who, on a suicide mission, must descend into the ground and destroy the mutant machine.
I don’t know about you, but that plot description sounds like all sorts of awesome to me. Alas, it’s in the execution where great ideas live or, like here, die. The writing is a collection of oh-so-bad dialogue and plot holes the size of, well, alien mutant manufacturing machines from outer space. You will not be dazzled by any of the acting.
The film also suffers from an oppressive amount of “style.” It’s sorta like steampunk gone bad, but not as good as that sounds, actually. Some of it is simply awesome to look at, but overall it’s just too much.
An example is also a film high point: Our Heroic Band boards a shuttle that is powered by steam. You have big, sweaty men shoveling coal into furnaces, flight officers dressed in their British replica best, thick metal plates with rivets, tiny windscreens, oodles of strange dials and optics, etc. The boilers come up to pressure and they launch. Monks stand and point in reverence (I kid thee not). We have here a steam-powered aircraft chugging along like a steam-powered locomotive. It’s simply awesome. If the film had merely lived up to this sequence it would have been awesome.
There are gritty, grimy, gory grapplings galore. The mutants have a stabbing claw for one arm so they just hack humans up. They’re fast, love fog, and while appearing stupid can actually fly steam-powered aircraft. Stupid is as stupid does, go figure.
We are also left to figure out how the “ancient tribes,” armed with spears, swords, and animal hides, stopped the mutant horde from conquering the Earth while four major corporations with massive amounts of explosive armaments are helpless, opting to cut and run rather than stand, fight, and, er, win.
A pleasant surprise is the soundtrack by Richard Wells. Where has this guy been hiding? The music is excellent, a grand thumping score that would make Korngold proud. I’ve already grabbed the digital download from Amazon. Too bad that, like so many musical artists ahead of him, Wells’ music is squandered on a sub-standard film.
Ah well. Despite all that, Mutant Chronicles is a guilty pleasure. I might have to add it to the collection, right next to Wanted and Hitman and, yes, Battlefield Earth.
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