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Overall Rating : 2/10
Directed By : Amir Valinia
Michael Ironside (Terminator Salvation)
Louis Herthum (Carnivorous)
Tony Senzamici (Carnivorous)
Steven Bauer (Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia)
Supplied By : North American Motion Pictures
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : November. 8, 2009
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| PLOT A mad scientist inadvertently unleashes the apocalypse while attempting to create an addictive additive for a greedy manufacturer. Instead of creating an army of compulsive consumers, it turns regular people into frenzied mutants. When the infection begins to spread at an alarming rate, it's up to the head of security and his girlfriend to contain the threat--or die trying. |
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| THE REVIEW In MUTANTS, Braylon, businessman and owner of Just Rite Sugar has an evil plan, a plan that will increase his own profits. He has hired on a corrupt Scientist named Sergei to contruct a sugar additive, one in particular, that once it's added will make his product more addictive than the likes of cocaine or caffeine. Sergei under Braylon's supervision begins to test the additive on subjects that the two say that people will not miss, such as those who are troubled, addicts are illegal aliens. Unfortunately after a few of these tests, the additive begins to have a negative reaction on the test subjects, mutating itself into a virus that eventually eats away at it's host, but not before it turns them into a flesh-eating mutant themselves. In the midst of the chaos, Braylon's man accidentally and mistakenly kidnap Ryan, the brother of Braylon's Secretary Erin, who just so happens to also be the son of Braylon's head of security, Griff. When Erin is anonymously tipped off that Ryan is at the Shadow Rock Mill, where the tests are being administered and may be in danger. Erin, along with her father go in to investigate and to hopefully retrieve Ryan, this is where Braylon's secret operation is finally exposed. With this film, we have a story that possibly could've been something more. In the vein of films like THE STUFF, MUTANTS centers itself around consumer products and how the world could be effected if a popular product were to be tampered with. In this film, the villain per say is Braylon who owns a sugar company, and his weapon of choice is his very own product - of course he doesn't intend harm to anyone, he just wants the consumer to suffer for his sells rate. Unfortunately for him after tons on the new product had already been shipped out, it's discovered that the new additive has disastrous effects on those who digest it, of course that in itself does not stop Braylon's greed at all. As I said, MUTANTS could've been a much better story, but as you will find out, the story never fully extends beyond the testing at Shadow Rock Mill. The dialogue as well as the film's plot hints that the additive would most likely cause a world wide epidemic, although really really never see any depiction of one ourselves, other than the film's closing segment, which pales in comparison as to what could've been done. When summing up MUTANTS in a nutshell, all I could say is that MUTANTS is a film that is both dry and boring. The movie features a lot of dialogue mentioning of things that are happening yet you see nearly nothing at all, there are no real mutants here, especially one's that resemble the one plastered on the DVDs cover. This movie simply uses cheap makeup effects to achieve a look that is distinct enough to let us know that something is indeed wrong with a victim, the infected are more or less zombies, and not even good ones at that. Going into this film, I'll be honest when I say that my expectations weren't high from the beginning, seeing as MUTANTS was directed by the same guy that gave us CARNIVOROUS(aka LOCKJAW : RISE OF THE KULEV SERPENT), and for the further fact that most of that film's cast returns here. MUTANTS is a film in which not too much happens, as it leaves the viewer just hoping that something would. Under developed and under executed plot, lifeless acting(which counts on rather pointless brief appearances by both Steven Bauer and Michael Ironside) and abysmal makeup effects, all of the above are here, making MUTANTS one sluggish and boring film to take in. |
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| GORE
METER 2.5/10 Typical suspense tones, the director even recycles a lame hip-hop song he had used in LOCKJAW for the film's closing segment, which was in my opinion pretty lame. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 1.5/10 Awful effects. We have typical zombie movie stuff here(not mutant stuff, mind you), there are flesh wounds, infected boils and gun shot wounds. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM Honestly, there is not much more that I can say about MUTANTS that I have not already said. It's another one of those films that promises a certain thing, but in the end, it fails to deliver on it. If you are looking to find the creature depicted and advertised on the box art, you won't find it here, it's just a marketing strategy to reel in unsuspecting buyers. This is a film that is as generic as it's title, another throwaway zombie flick being marketed as something else. |
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