Review of Mute (2018) by Mcgillotine — 27 Feb 2018

Dear Netflix,.

Please stop helping butcher the sci-fi genre. Altered Carbon was meh but with these last two, The Cloverfield Paradox and now Mute, are just complete sh*t. I understand that most sci-fi films released this day aren't particularly good but at-least there semi-watchable, not completely pointless, and don't put me to sleep. I think you may have gotten caught in the idea of what you can do as opposed to what you should do and while crapfests such as Mute may be cheap to buy and distribute, they're cheap for a reason and chances are you could likely get them for free just so the original production company can wash there hands of the mess. Set in Berlin 40 years from now, the creatively named 'Mute' follows a mute Amish bartender who is searching for his missing girlfriend. What ensures is a bunch of loosely tied plot threads, another Blade Runner themed world (which i'll address soon), and a bunch of boring and misplaced performances that all accumulate to yet another bad excuse at neo-noir film-making. Duncan Jones, the writer and director of this film once again continues his downward spiral in film-making following the abomination Warcraft. While the only good film he made was Moon (which this film will be sure to remind you of) Jones shows, that he still hasn't found his way back to writing a good film and will now have to spend the next few years reminding people at parties that he wrote and directed Moon, before he is given another gig. Jones direction overall is a mess and nothing really connects nor makes sense in the greater scheme of things, character motivations seem off and when the film finds itself at an impasse an element of deus ex machina is thrown in to get the protagonist onto the next set so things can get wrapped up.

Before I continue I would like to segue onto the topic of Blade Runner because it seems like every neo-noir project ever made needs to ceremoniously kiss it's ass and structure it's entire world around 2019 Los Angles. Now don't get me wrong, Blade Runner is among my top 10 favorite films ever made, but for god's sake be original, because if hear visually inspired by Blade Runner mentioned one more time, I think i'm going to scream.

Now that that's over, acting. Now acting in this film as I said before is boring, Alexander Skarsgård is the lead and he is difficult watch, not only is his presence in the film just akward to watch, the fact that his character doesn't talk also makes him all the more dis-interesting as his spends the majority of the movie drawing pictures and punching people. Paul Rudd makes the best of his time between his marvel acting gigs in yet another type-cast role in which he plays the sarcastic every-man. And newcomer Seyneb Saleh plays the love interest, a paint by numbers femme fatale with a dark secret and past, that is only slightly more interesting to watch then the lead as she actually speaks.

Mute is a boring and uninspired Blade Runner rip off with a few quirks throw in for good measure. You probably won't remember this film after you watch it, I sure don't and if the movies title wasn't 4 letters I probably would have forgotten that already too.