Movie Title: Mutant Chronicles
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Starring: Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, Devon Aoki, Sean Pertwee, Benno Fürmann, John Malkovich, Anna Walton, Tom Wu, Steve Toussaint, Luis Echegaray, Pras Michel, Shauna Macdonald
Review: In the 28th century, an army of underworld Mutants have risen up to put an end to human-kind and it's up to hardened soldier Mitch Hunter (Thomas Jane) and Brother Samuel (Ron Perlman) to lead a rag-tag group to save the world. What sounds like a rousing action-adventure flick is actually a very dark, depressing war movie that is never really sure about what tone it should have.
The cast is impressive with the likes of genre favorites including Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, Devon Aoki, Sean Pertwee, and John Malkovich. But the problem is with a story of soldiers versus underground mutants, you think you're getting The Dirty Dozen versus monster men, you're really getting a downbeat war film that goes for brutal war reality that's set in a futuristic fantasy world.
The movie is very bleak, and it touches on topics like the cruelty of man, war, faith, which are fine, but this is a sci-fi fantasy movie that tries to have exciting action sequences and humorous one-liners, too. Both really fall flat and make the time watching rather uncomfortable and lacking any enjoyment.
Mutant Chronicles is a low budget movie with big aspirations, which I can appreciate, but the filmmakers seemed to want to do too much and weren't able to figure out what kind of a movie they were making. I'd say skip this one. It's not a fun watch and it leaves you very confused and feeling like you were robbed of a good sci-fi adventure flick.
Fun Fact: Prior to making the film, director Simon Hunter wrote, directed and edited a seven-minute teaser film to create buzz and to show the desired mood to the producers and actors.