The Screen Addict | Mutant Chronicles
Mutant Chronicles (2008) is one of those films that all but vanished from our collective cultural memory. It randomly popped in my head the other day, and although experience tells me that I probably should let forgotten films stay forgotten, I just had to track it down. I eventually found a German Blu-ray release online, and decided to roll the dice.
The plot is intriguing – in the 28th century, earth is ruled by four giant corporations that are in a constant state of war. When an ancient, alien machine is unearthed during a battle, soldiers and civilians alike are transformed into mutants, forcing a small group of survivors to fight back or flee to Mars.
MC was made completely outside the studio system with the help of independent production companies, multiple financiers, and worldwide pre-sales. One of the many producers is Pras Michél, who shot to fame during The Nineties as part of the hip-hop formation Fugees. Sadly, Michél’s producing aspirations recently landed him in some very hot water, when he was named as a co-conspirator in the massive 1MDB fraud scandal.
However, it is not very likely that MC was part of the illicit financing scheme that put quite a damper on the critical and commercial success of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), as MC was produced five years prior to Scorsese’s picture.
The ambitions of MC are admirable, but the film doesn’t quite pull off the aspired amalgamation of Total Recall (1990) and Starship Troopers (1997). The art direction and production design are nothing short of spectacular though, invoking similar steampunk nightmares like Dark City (1998) and Mad God (2021). However, the effects work is more on par with Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) and Iron Sky (2012), in terms of green-screen dominated spectacle.
The final scene suggests that MC was meant to be the first in a series of films – assuming in advance that your movie is going to be a franchise is never a good idea – but the abysmal box office quickly killed those ambitions.
Still, there’s plenty to enjoy here. Event Horizon (1997) scribe Philip Eisner wrote a fun script based on the original board game, and the concept apparently was enticing enough to attract the likes of Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman and John Malkovich.
MC is perfect for a lazy Sunday morning, and that is exactly when I watched it. My conclusion is that this kooky curiosity doesn’t deserve oblivion, so give it another whirl, if you can track it down.
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Twitter (X): Robin Logjes | The Screen Addict