I have never seen a more strange mix of what appears to be, on paper at least, an amazing idea for a movie, and have it fall apart at almost every turn.
In the year 2707, Earth is running out of viable material for fuel and survival. The world is controlled by four mega corporations; Capitol, Bauhaus, Imperial, and Mishima. They war with each other constantly for control of the last scraps of what can sustain life on Earth. In one of the battles between Capitol and Bauhaus, a large artillery shell breaks open a seal in the surface of the Earth that has been in place for hundreds of years. Once the seal is broken, hoards of undead beings created by “The Machine” that lay deep underground begin to pour out. Now the war has a new threat, and Earth begins a massive exodus to escape certain death.
The descendants of the great warrior Neachdainn, the man who “united the tribes of man” and sealed away the machine are the only ones keeping the memory of those desperate times alive. Brother Samuel, hears of the seal falling apart and sets off on a quest with 20 soldiers from all the corporations to destroy the machine, once and for all. The Mutant Chronicles is a movie that was never going to work out. Despite the fact that it has some huge actors in it, like Ron Pearlman, Thomas Jane, and frickin John Malkovich, it is just to bananas to work. It’s based on a pen-and-paper RPG from the early 90s and was filmed in 2008, and features enough green-screen work and post production as the Lord Of The Rings movies. You can tell that the producers of this film wanted so badly for this film to be a sensation. The cast is great, the story is shaky, and the production is forced. Mutant Chronicles seems like a passion project from beginning to end. The final scene of the movie sets up nicely a sequel that will never happen. This might be the biggest budget flop I have seen in years. I can only guess that Malkovich owed someone a favor, and this was his out. Mutant Chronicles isn’t even a “so-bad-it’s-good” kind of movie. I can only recommend watching it if you have nothing else to do, and you really want to see a movie about alternative steam-punk future.
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