[THE CHALK-OUTLINE]
Mutant Chronicles (2008): Breakdown by Rantbo
Machine from space turns humans into zombie-mutants. Tom Jane fucks shit up.
[THE EXECUTION]
The best way I can think to describe this film is, RESIDENT EVIL meets WAR OF THE WORLDS, THE DIRTY DOZEN and THE DESCENT set in a post apocalyptic steam-punk future—on a low budget. Which could either be one of the worst ideas ever, or just some mediocre bullshit. The year is—I’m not looking it up, fuck it, it doesn’t matter… It’s the future, and the world is controlled by corporations. The one running the West countries and the one running the East countries are at war and whilst killing one another, they awaken an ancient space-death machine that turns human bodies into T-Virus-like mutants. These ‘worker-ant’ muties job is to stoke the fires of the “machine” with more bodies, and they really take pride in their work. The Earth, in short, is fucked. Enter Ron Pearlman and his Dirty-Half Dozen, suicide squad, hand-picked and heaven-bent on saving the world on a million-to-one shot.
I’m on the mediocre bullshit side of the fence, simply because no matter how shitty the films are that he appears in (PUNISHER 2004), Tom Jane kicks ass. But saving grace, though he is, this film still borderlines the suck. Like I mentioned above, it’s extremely low budget, at least it is for the scope that the screenwriters must have originally intented. I’m not one to usually bitch about this sort of thing, as I seriously doubt I could take the same limited means and create something as good as this flick, but I wouldn’t have tried either. My advice would have been to tone down the Sci-Fi a bit, by taking a little more modern setting and thus nixing a bunch of those unnecessary and embarrassing green screen shots. But I have yet to be paid a dime for my opinion, so what the fuck do I know? Aside from that shit, it wasn’t too horrifying.
Was it worth watching? Yeah, I guess. Again, for nothing else than to watch Tom Jane say fuck and kill shit in unapologetic rage-fueled violent ways. So, if that sounds like a good time, rent this shit and have a party, ‘cuz that’s exactly what you’ll get.
[HOW BAD-ASS IS THE MAIN CHARACTER?]
Thomas Jane is Sgt. John Mitchell ‘Mitch’ Hunter
Mitch is a hard talkin‘, hard smokin’, stoic old school BadAssMotherFucker with an attitude. When he isn’t busy slaughtering both zombie-mutant hybrids and asshole humans that rub him the wrong way, he’s smoking and grumbling curse words under his breath. He’s angry, loaded and filled to the brim with bloodlust and religious contempt. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was my father.
[THE BODY COUNT: THE HUMAN RACE [-] A FEW HUNDRED]
More than INDEPENDENCE DAY and ARMAGEDDON combined. The film begins in the middle of a war on a very bloody battle field. So, a shit-load die right there. Then the mutants get unleashed and a shit-load more die. Then the mutants spread and wipe out humanity. Add a mother-fucking shit-ton. THEN there are the deaths involved amongst the heroic team as they descend deeper into the zombies nest.
Not to mention the assload of mutants that get butchered along the way. Even if Tom Jane wasn’t in this film, the body count alone would have probably made it worth watching. So, there you go. One more reason to watch.
[MOST SATISFYING DEATH]
There are quite a few violently funny novelty kills, but my favorite has to go to Tom Jane’s utter ownage of one of the random muties. After he sets the fucker on fire with an oil lamp, he kicks it to it’s knees and chops off it’s head with a sword.
[DUDESWEAT AND MACHISMO]
Not so much. Tom Jane does, however, have a special bond with his commanding officer from the battle-grounds before the whole mutant apocalypse. It comes up later as well, but it’s nothing outside of the everyday ordinary suppressed homoerotic jarhead hierarchies.
[EXPLOITATION AND MISOGYNY]
Ladies are ALMOST seen as equals in this one, and in fact they end up out surviving many of the men. Just like in real life. Except, I did happen to notice that there wasn’t any female mutants, leading me to believe that the over throwers of the planet knew that the Y gene was far superior for ruling and control. Thus the men of our planet where chosen alone to be worthy of being converted into the soldiers and future rulers of Mutant Earth.
[EPIC MOMENT AND BEST ONE-LINER]
I don’t want to spoil it with a picture, so I’ll just say that Jane solidifies himself as a ballsy hero when he is strapped-to and escapes-from the mutant converter machine. And while it isn’t what I would call a clean getaway (at all), it is certainly the best sequence in the film.
“What do you believe?”
“I’m not paid to believe. I’m paid to fuck shit up.”
[THE MORAL OF THE STORY]
“You can fuck a lot of people, you only die once.”
[THE CHECKLIST: 13 outta 25]
[ ] Athlete(s) Turned “Actor”
[X] Clinging To The Outside Of A Moving Vehicle
[ ] Crotch Attack
[X] Dialogue Telling Us How Bad-Ass The Main Character(s) Is/Are
[ ] Ending Featuring An Ambulance, A Blanket or A Towel
[ ] Factory/Warehouse
[X] Giant Explosion(s)
[X] Heavy Artillery
[X] Improvised Weapon(s)
[X] Macho Mode(s) Of Transportation
[ ] Main Character Sports Facial Accessory(s)
[ ] Manly Embrace(s)
[ ] Notorious Stunt-Man Sighting
[ ] Passage(s) Of Time Via Montage
[X] Politically Fueled Plot Point(s)
[X] Senseless Destruction Of Property
[X] Shoot Out(s) and/or Sword Fight(s)
[X] Slow-Motion Finishing Move(s)/Death(s)
[X] Stupid Authoritative Figure(s)
[X] Substance Usage and/or Abuse
[ ] Tis The Season
[X] Torture Sequence(s)
[ ] Unnecessary Sequel
[ ] Vehicle Chase(s)
[ ] Vigilante Justice
