In the year 2702, Earth has been divvied up by four ruling corporations, and they are at war over Mother Earth’s resources, which are all but depleted.  A deadly battle between Capitol (North and South Americas) and Bauhaus (Eastern Europe and North Africa) opens up a crater in the earth which lets out the mutants.  The mutants go about slaughtering the soldiers, and dragging some, kicking and screaming, back into the hole in the ground.

The mutants are carrying victims to a machine.  This machine fell to Earth during the Ice Age, and it turns people into mutants.  Ice Age warriors successfully, somehow, buried the machine underground.  This knowledge has passed down through the ages to a group of monks, and, rightly, they keep knowledge of the machine a secret lest the entire population freak out.  Much as they do when mutants begin overrunning Earth.

Ron Perlman plays the monk, Brother Samuel, who rallies a ragtag band of soldiers to stop the mutants and destroy the machine.  Thomas Jane plays the hardened soldier, Sergeant Mitch Hunter, whom Brother Samuel gets to lead the suicide mission.  Hunter has few of his soldiers remaining, so he must learn to play nice with soldiers from the enemy corporations in order to stop the common threat.  Don’t you just love war?


I think the key to watching The Mutant Chronicles is what time of day you decide to view it.  I watched it at around midnight, one in the morning; and it is a film best viewed late at night.  Late at night, movies don’t really have to make sense, or be logical, they just need to entertain.  Or so I think.  I missed like the first ten minutes of this movie and had to rewind it to catch the opening bits of information, but I still don’t think I quite understand everything that happened, the why or the what for.

Doesn’t matter.  Watch The Mutant Chronicles as a midnight feature, and you may like it better.  Watch it during the daylight or evening hours, you may make the mistake of trying to think it through.  Don’t do that.  The performances are phoned in, and when they aren’t phoned in, they are cardboard.  But this is a nice B-movie, with a cool aesthetic, and is full of action, and even if it doesn’t make sense (a weak script doesn’t help), it still has that late night quality/vibe thing going on that could have helped many suckfests that pass for movies.

Give it a chance.  Around midnight.

3 out of 5
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