While I was at Comic Con this past weekend, I attended a world preview of the film The Mutant Chronicles, starring Thomas Jane and Ron Perlman. I thought it would be fun to once again write about a film that hasn't come out in theatres yet, and be one of the first people in the world to review it.It's a sci fi film about a world in chaos that becomes infected by mutants that want to turn everyone else into mutants as well. This is one of the projects Jane chose to take instead of doing The Punisher sequel, which is scheduled to come out in December with a different actor in the leading role of Frank Castle. On that note, Perlman played Hellboy in the recent film Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which was fantastic. But back to Jane. I can't believed he passed on reprising a role on the superhero communities favouriate anti-hero-especially when the sequel looked to have more funding and a potentially deeper storyline. Instead, the promising actor did once again another terrible film. Following the Stephen King adaptation The Mist, Jane has proven that he does not know how to pick acting roles. He had the potential to follow in the footsteps of such actors as Clive Owens but instead chose to pull a Jason Statham, taking any action role to pay the rent and not worrying about the quality of the script.
Perlman has been known for starring in many B movies, from Alien: Resurrection to In the Name of the King, but Jane always seemed to be different until now. The Mutant Chronicles is ridiculously bad. It's a British B movie with the patronizing dialogue and story to prove it. I imagine my audience of three will not be inclined to see such a film anyways, but alas it's fun to write about something no one can refute-unless the other viewers just happen to stumble on this. Anyways, the film felt like a high-budget Sci Fi Channel original film. Meaning, it had more than a TV budget but less than a quality feature film one. Tom Jane gave a disclaimer at the beginning of the film that it was still a work in progress. Some edits were rough and certain effects just needed to be fine tuned, but the foundation of the film was shit. The storyline could've been engaging, but the acting was poor and the dialogue was as chiche as it gets. It was also surprising how gory it was. I've never seen that many stabs in the neck in one film. Initially it had a mild visceral effect, but became repetitious. And boy, the dramatic moments of the film were more unbelievable than George W. Bush trying to tell the American public that he really does want peace (okay, cheap shot). About five minutes in the film, the dramatic film cued up for the first major death of the film. Sorry, five minutes isn't enough time in a low-budget film for an emotional connection worth using dramatic music for.
I love sci fi films, but I'm getting sick of so many bad screenplays being approved. I don't understand how it happens, but it's way too common. Even blockbusters like Transformers are prone to these problems. Anyways, The Mutant Chronicles sucked. Go see something better than that piece of shit when it hits like two theatres nationwide. From the look of it, Death Race will probably be better, but that's more comparing two types of shit.
