I must say that Mutant Chronicles actually turned out to be better than I had originally expected. It’s always a pleasant surprise when this type of movie manages to rise above the rather low bar I set for it. With a likeable cast of second and third tier actors and an interesting retro design aesthetic that permeates every scene, I just couldn’t help having more fun with this movie then I had originally intended to have…even if the heavy use of CG and less than stellar storyline made it feel like a violent Looney Tunes episode at times.

Based off a pen-and-paper RPG by the same name, Mutant Chronicles attempts to bring the rich setting of the game to the big screen without having to deal with any of the history that comes along with it. This was ultimately a rather bad decision because the viewer spends much of the movie scratching their heads trying to figure out what’s with the retro WWI themed technology, what happened to the world to make it the way it is, and where the bad guys actually come from. As far as I can tell, the movie takes place after the events that were covered in the old RPG game, but too much of the original game’s histroy is either glossed over or only mentioned briefly in passing without any explanation to really put what’s going on in the proper context.

I’m not saying the story is that difficult to follow, because it’s not. At it’s core, it’s a Dirty Dozen style story about a small group of soldiers who must sneak past enemy lines (in this case, muderous mutants) and do what the combined armies of the world could not. To aid them in this task, they get a holy man (playted by the ever awesome Ron Perlman) with his magical book of prophecy and some swords to go along with their big ass guns. As an added bonus, they also have the Punisher (Thomas Jane) as their leader who, with the aid of his awesome Punisher powers, is destined to become the Chosen One that will save all mankind from the evil mutant menace.

Like I said, the main plot is not that hard to follow. The problem was that, as a viewer, I witnessed a complete lack of any sort of effort to provide me with enough background information to be able to put everything in the proper context for a richer and more fulfilling viewing experiance.

Despite it’s shortcomings in the storytelling department, I still had a rather enjoyable time. I realize that the extemely heavy use of CG through the film will turn many off and it is hard to deny that the entire film appears to have been filmed almost entirely in front of a blue screen. To make matters worse, the majority of the CG work swings back and forth between being extremely obvious to just down right bad. In fact, most of the gorier scenes are so fake looking I can’t believe that they bothered to use computer graphics at all when they could have had better looking results with just a couple of ketchup packets squeezed at the right time.

Bottom Line:
Playing out more like a very violent Saturday morning cartoon than any sort of attempt at a real movie, Mutant Chronicles is an interesting diversion as long as you don’t ask to many questions.

Final Score: 3 out of 5 stars
Review by: LC1
Review Format: Blu-ray