I actually got around to watching the Mutant Chronicles movie the other day. It's been sitting on my self for a couple of weeks after I found it in a bargain bin (NOK 49). Expectations were not very great. This looked very much like a B-movie. But hey, it's a couple of hours of sci-fi and at a very low cost. I also know the Mutant Chronicles setting fairly well, although it's been quite a few years since last we met...

Overall I was rather pleasantly surprised. Sure, it was a B-movie. Big time. But I was never bored - at times I was well entertained. The special effects were decent and the action sequences not too bad. And although acting isn't high on the list of the film's strengths the band of unlikely heroes contained a rather interesting mix of characters (which any role-player would appreciate - I liked the Steiner fellow in particular).

Hot Asian Chick - she gets cut in two unfortunately

The story was pretty basic - Evil Machine lands on Earth 10.000 years ago sending forth mutant minions to destroy humanity. Heroic human tribes fight back and seal away Machine. Stupid humans forget about machine and wakes it up, letting monsters loose. End of the world imminent. Ancient religious order the has preserved lore about the Machine steps forth to gather unlikely heroes to make suicide raid to destroy machine and save humanity. Lots of quasi-religious stuff included. Faith and hope - that sort of thing. Not terribly good, but not incredibly bad either.

The films strongest point was atmosphere. It managed to convey a dark and gritty future pretty well. I think they overdid the steam-punk aspect a bit, but that's just me. I don't like steam-punk too much to begin with. But overall they had stayed consistent to a very bleak Sky Captain of Tomorrow/Steampunk imagery.

Where the movie didn't do so well was in the plot department. The basic story was basic and unimaginative, but the actual plot was so full of holes you could drive a car through them. My 'favorite' was near the end when the hero found his old army buddy who had been captured by the mutants six weeks before during their initial breakout...found him being dragged away by his captors to meet his mutating doom inside the Machine...presumably the muties had been dragging the mortally injured man around for six weeks. Rather inefficient...seeing as how they managed to overrun the entire world  - on foot  - during the course of those six weeks, including dragging back hordes of people to the Machine as to make new muties. But hey, maybe the one dragging 'old army bud' had gotten lost in the tunnels? That was daft enough to (almost) ruin the film for me (and it was a completely unnecessary scene too!).

Oh, and there is one more thing. The director took one look at the setting material, wiped his ass with it and then CAME UP WITH SOMETHING HARDLY RELATED TO MUTANT CHRONICLES AT ALL! That was something of a disappointment. It was like watching a 40K movie and have the God-Emperor alive and well and Chaos reduced to just some raving mutants. I suddenly understood why companies like GW protect their IP so vigorously...

In conclusion: If you know nothing about Mutant Chronicles to begin with and have a love of sci-fi/light action and can borrow the film from some one I'd recommend it.  Otherwise I won't recommend it - but I won't warn you NOT to see it. It wasn't all that bad and it's not like you get a lot of movies in that genre.