Back to the Dark Ages

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“Put the detonator in the hole,” shouts the well-proportioned Valerie Duval (Devon Aoki).

“Which hole,” replies six-packed, partially disfigured Major “Mitch” Hunter (Thomas Jane).

“Any hole,” shouts Duval, as she and Severian (Anna Walton), a priestess-warrior with a talent for swordplay decapitate, eviscerate and generally lop the limbs off the crab-clawed mutants who have taken over the world.

It is moments like this that make great B-movies, and The Mutant Chronicles is clearly earmarked for a species of cult immortality. One thinks of other gloriously terrible movies such as Red Sonia (1985) and Flash Gordon (1980) that raise wooden acting and formulaic story-making to the level of artistry.

The Mutant Chronicles cannot boast a sound track by Queen, or feature Brigitte Nielsen in leather lingerie, but Devon Aoki, reprising her role of mysterious woman warrior/supermodel from DOA: Dead or Alive (2006) and Anna Walton, who was Princess Narula in the recently released Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), provide plenty of eye candy for the boys. They wear strappy combat vests, sweat a lot and handle huge crusader-type two-handed swords with elegance. And then there is Ron Pearlman, whose growing reputation in this country following Hellboy II is probably responsible for the release of this film, and Outlander, a blood-and-battle axe Viking adventure, scheduled to hit movie theaters on Nov. 21. Pearlman, who invariably plays himself, whatever bizarre outfit he is required to wear (in this case a high priest of a cult dedicated to the destruction of the mutants), manages to deliver lines such as “God is life; the enemy is unlife” with the same kind of conviction that Arnold Schwarzenegger gave to the great moments in the Conan movies. Then there is Thomas Jane, who has a brooding and muscular presence that is more than adequate for his role as the main mutant executioner.

The additional appeal of The Mutant Chronicles is the faux realism of its background, which embraces the retro-futurist chic of Keith Roberts’ Pavane with its wonderful steam-powered aircraft and pre-Reformation religious iconography. The setup is big on atmosphere, from the opening battle sequence featuring a futuristic take on World War I trench warfare to a rather surprising cameo by John Malkovich as a religious leader who has lost hope for the future of humanity.

Watching The Mutant Chronicles is like watching a video game, and the main points of the story are inspired by a primitive pen-and-paper role-playing game first published in 1993. It has been brought into the cinema with the use of many narrative and stylistic devices that would not be out of place in a modern first-person-shooter. It bears some similarities to other game based movies such as the Resident Evil series, but the stylish and imaginative settings make it rather more fun.

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