Mutant Chronicles Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		2.5

Mutant Chronicles Blu-ray Movie Review

“You’ve seen the worst that man can do, but you haven’t seen the worst of what the enemy can do.”

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater August 21, 2009

While Mutant Chronicles isn’t the worst that independent sci-fi filmmaking can do, it does come as a disappointment. With a cast that includes Ron Perlman, John Malkovich, Thomas Jane, and Sin City’s Devon Aoki, you’d expect Mutant Chronicles to be a mix of B-movie magic and modern, kick-ass cinematic grit. While that’s certainly what the film aspires toward, the script has all the nuance of a third-rate videogame plot, the performances are spotted by unwieldy, often unintentionally hilarious dialogue, and the overall execution is ambitious but sloppy. It definitely has moments of geeky, unabashed fun, but the film as a whole is mired in that awkward no man’s land between “so bad it’s good to watch for laughs” and “so bad I can’t believe I’m still watching.”

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Mutant Chronicles is loosely based off a pen-and-paper RPG universe of the same name that has spawned card games, board games, and even Doom Troopers, a side-scrolling shoot’em up Contra-clone for the SNES and Sega Genesis. In the film, the massive backstory has been minced into as few words as possible, taking the form of introductory voice-over narration by Ron Perlman. In the distant future, the nations of the Earth have merged into four mega- corporations—Capital, Imperial, Bauhaus, and Mishima—that remain in a perpetual state of mutually beneficial war, fighting over the planet’s dwindling resources while keeping an eye on the stock market’s tickertape. During a battle between Capital and Bauhaus—in what used to be Poland—an ancient seal is broken and mutants begin spewing forth from an alien “machine” that was buried some 10,000 years prior. Fast-forward three minutes and the world is suddenly overrun by the hideous beasties, prompting mass-evacuations to other planets. Warrior monk Samuel (Ron Perlman) believes he can stop the mutants and save humanity by fulfilling the ancient prophesies found in “The Mutant Chronicles”—his Brotherhood’s massive bible-of-sorts— and he conscripts a rag-tag band of soldiers to accompany him to the core of the “machine” and help him to blow it up. What follows is a men-on-a-mission style plot that goes from A to B to C like progressive levels of a videogame, becoming more intense—but revealing only more of the same—as humanity’s last hope travels deeper into the bowels of the earth.

The trouble is, we don’t care about any of it. Humanity isn’t really endangered, as it’s clear there are already settlements on other planets, and the loss of the war-ravaged and resource- plundered Earth doesn’t seem like such a big deal. The film fails to give significant motivation for the suicide mission undertaken by the main characters. With nothing to lose, they’re simply going through the military motions, doing what they’ve been told to do but with no real stake in the outcome. Worse still, we’re given no insight into the “agenda” of the pointy-limbed mutants, aside from the fact that they like killing. Who controls them? Why did they come to Earth? What are they planning to do after taking over the planet? We never get any answers, and so the mutants come in mindless waves, a variation on zombies but lacking the pointed social commentary offered by the best Romero-esque films. The “machine” is nothing more than a mutant replication factory, and nothing about its scale indicates an ability to pump out world- consuming quantities of mutants.

“Still,” you might say, “plot particulars don’t really matter if the film is just a fun excuse to see mutants get sliced up in entertaining ways.” If only it were so. The violence never has the head- splitting, limb-removing satisfaction found in most zombie films, and the mutants are devoid of any real menace or personality. The human characters are similarly one-dimensional, and the actors simply don’t have much to work with. Thomas Jane (The Mist) does his best as a grizzled American grunt, but he’s in a constant uphill battle against clumsy macho dialogue and worn-out one-liners. Aoki basically reprises her Sin City role here, and her prowess with a sword is her character’s only real contribution to the plot. Most surprisingly, Ron Perlman is uncharacteristically dry, his line readings inflected by an unconvincing Gaelic lilt that comes and goes and his movements seeming more tired than meditative. Malkovich’s cameo finds him as the sickly leader of one of the mega-corporations, and he balks through his dialogue with more halts and pregnant pauses than a William Shatner monologue.

The only thing the film really has going for it is the steam-punk aesthetic of its alternate universe. Be prepared to suspend your disbelief, because if you think steam-powered rifles are far-fetched, wait until you see shirtless engine men shoveling coal into the fiery furnace of a spaceship that belches black smoke as it struggles to gain altitude. Director Simon Hunter also goes the old-fashioned route with Mutant Chronicles’ visual cues, trading new-fangled CGI for green screen backdrops mostly made from matte paintings, set extensions, and miniature models. I admire the hard work that goes into these disappearing techniques, but the overall look lacks polish, with foreground actors jutting unnaturally from the hand-made backgrounds. For an independently financed sci-fi epic, Mutant Chronicles looks better than you might expect, but the story and performances are simply too dull to support its visual eccentricities.

Mutant Chronicles Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Though sections of the HD-shot film are sharp and well-detailed, I never warmed to Mutant Chronicles' 1080p/VC-1 encoded transfer. To be fair, the transfer isn't so much to blame as the sometimes ridiculously stylized post-production color toning, which desaturates most of the image into a dingy grey/brown hybrid and then pumps up certain tones—like the red of Ron Perlman's cloak—for an effect that tries to mimic the popping contrast of Sin City but only succeeds in looking amateurish. It's like seeing photos edited by someone who has newly discovered Photoshop —the filters, masks, and colorations are a bit sloppy and overenthusiastically applied. I'd be more understanding if the film had a consistent look the whole way through, but the toning seems to change with every other scene. As you can imagine, then, skin tones are all over the map. Black levels are sufficient for outdoor and daytime segments, but indoor and darker shots are occasionally washed out with a dim, grayish cast and below average shadow delineation. On the plus side, the film is very sharp at times—check out the WWI-ish trench scenes in the pouring rain and notice the detailed textures of the costumes and the crisply detailed facial features. While I caught a few instances of almost imperceptible banding, there are no other compression-related issues here to report, and the digital noise that is present has a filmic quality that's rarely obtrusive.

Mutant Chronicles Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround track is more immediately impressive, serving up an engaging, almost unrelenting audio experience. As this is essentially a war film, there's plenty of work for the surround speakers, from tone establishing ambience, like heavy rain mixed with heavier gunfire, to discrete effects that crash and burn with prodigious cross-channel interaction. Likewise, the dynamic range is solid and well-grounded. With subwoofer use a-plenty, the film has a hefty sense of LFE oomph, balanced out by a snappy clarity in the upper registers. If I have one overriding complaint it's that, during some of the more hectic battle scenes, the mid-range drops out, leaving a hollow void. This seems to be a stylistic audio decision, but it never really jived for me. Finally, dialogue is almost always clear and coherent, though there were a few instances when I had to volume boost to hear what was being said.

Mutant Chronicles Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Making of Mutant Chronicles: A Documentary (SD, 1:47:34)
Clocking in at a feature length one hour and forty-seven minutes, this "making of" documentary is longer and—arguably—more interesting than the film itself. I often describe behind-the-scenes featurettes as "exhaustive," but this one puts most others to shame. Documentary director Andrew MacKay chronicles every single element of the film's creation, from pre-production and all the way through to the finished product, with plenty of on-set footage in between. While literally everything is addressed—costuming, special effects, ADR, scoring, fight choreography, storyboarding, green screen, ad infinitum—I was particularly impressed by the miniature models used during the film and by DP Geoff Boyle's explanations of cinematography techniques. Slow- motion geeks will get a kick out of the 1,000 FPS HD slo-mo cam used to capture some of the explosions, while others may perhaps be interested in the fact that we see Thomas Jane nearly naked in the ADR booth. Whatever your behind-the-scenes pleasure, this doc will surely scratch your itch. Admittedly, it is a hair too long—an even one and a half hours would've been nice—but when did "less is more" ever apply to bonus features?

Commentary by Simon Hunter (Director) and Ron Perlman (Actor)
Hunter and Perlman turn in a subdued track that's nonetheless likable, listenable, and full of behind-the-scenes information, especially in regard to the practical effects used to bring the film's world to life. They do note that this cut of the film is somewhat abridged from the original version, which contained much more voice over explaining the cold hard facts of the mutant history and agenda. Perlman also remarks that working with John Malkovich is like "playing basketball with Michael Jordan," even though, from my view, Malkovich gives the film's most constipated performance. Fans will enjoy this track, and even those overly critical of the final product may muster some minor respect for the film after listening.

Deleted Scenes (SD, 7:50)
Six deleted scenes are included, most of which are dispensable. Two of them shed a little bit more light on the clumsy backstory, though, and the first is worth watching just to see Ron Perlman stumble through some metaphysical ponderings.

Green Screen and Storyboard Comparisons (SD, 13:59)
Here we see storyboards and plate shots intercut with final footage of three scenes from the film.

Promotional Teaser Short Film (SD, 7:15)
Hunter created this short "mood" film to drum up interest in the project and show potential actors and producers the kind of vibe he was planning for the feature-length Mutant Chronicles. It's basically a condensed version of the the film's trench warfare opening. Available with optional commentary by the director.

Making of Promotional Teaser Short Film (SD, 3:27)
Like an incredibly short version of the "making of" for the feature film, this takes us through pre- production, shooting, and post in less than four minutes.

Interviews with Cast and Crew (SD, 25:38)
Features brief chats with Simon Hunter, Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, Devon Aoki, John Malkovich, Benno Fürmann, Sean Pertwee, Tom Wu, Anna Walton, Luis Echegaray, Tim Dennison, Peter La Terriere, Edward R. Pressman, and Fredrik Malmberg.

HDNet: A Look At Mutant Chronicles (SD, 4:42)
Director Simon Hunter narrates this short promo for HDNet, detailing the basic plot and explaining the movie's "universe." Also includes a few brief snippets from the principle actors.

Visual Effects (SD, 2:48)
This is basically a demo reel for the visual effects created by Dinamo for the film.

Comic-Con Panel Q&A (SD, 11:37)
Like with many films that don't necessarily turn out as good as the actors might have hoped, Ron Perlman seems obligated here to defend the film, but you can tell he's not putting much heart into it. Thomas Jane hypes up the crowd, on the other hand, and he seems like a genuinely personable guy. The panel also includes producer Edward R. Pressman, director Simon Hunter, and actor Devon Aoki.

Webisodes (SD, 18:09)
There are 12 promotional webisodes in all, and if you've seen the film and watched the exhaustive "making of" documentary, you won't really find anything new here.

Storyboard and Concept Art Galleries (1080p, 94 images and 50 images)

Mutant Chronicles Trailer (1080p, 2:06)

The disc also includes BD-Live functionality and a handy resume feature.

Mutant Chronicles Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

With so many great sci-fi films out on Blu-ray, I can't recommend Mutant Chronicles as anything more than a cautious rental. Despite an intriguing alternate universe set-up, the film is too shallow to be worth watching for the story, and the action sequences won't be enough to sustain most sci-fi/horror junkies. If, on the other hand, you're a hardcore fan of the original RPG, you might get a few kicks out of the film, and you'll be pleased by the generous bonus offerings included on the disc.