After four sessions, finally powered my way through the new Netflix original film Mute. This is the latest sci-fi film from Duncan Jones who previously made Moon, Source Code, and the Warcraft movie… most would say with diminishing returns. Mute confirms that.
Mute is a film set in a Blade Runnerish future (cyberpunk, flying cars, etc). It follows a mute Amish bartender (Alexander Skarsgard) in future Berlin. He’s on a quest to find is missing girlfriend. Perplexingly, he’s mute because he injured his vocal cords in a powerboat accident as a kid and his Amish upbringing prevented him from getting surgery. So the outboard motor was good enough for the Amish family but not the surgery? Confused.
Anyhow, the movie ALSO stars Paul Rudd and Justin Thoreaux as underground mafia surgeons (the kind of guys who will patch up injured gangsters so they don’t have to go to a hospital). These two sketchy and skeevy guys dress and look like Hawkeye and Pierce from the film version of MASH, for some reason. One of them is trying to get papers so he can get out of Germany on the sly.
What these two plots have to do with each other is a great big unknown for long swaths of this two hour film. In fact, a lot of stuff this movie does just left me scratching my head. What it means. What’s the point. What’s the point of any movie, I suppose… but this one left me perplexed more than most. It’s a complete mess on a script level.
It also doesn’t help that Alexander Skargard spends the whole movie mugging at the camera because he can’t speak. Why is it important he can’t speak? I dunno. Just a character trait. Instead… He writes things down, has trouble with computers that expect vocal input, and constantly has to explain through gestures that he’s mute. It’s about as exciting as it sounds. The sick, sad thing is it’s set in Germany and they could have just made him not speak the language and they’d have had the same communication breakdown. Oh well.
All that negativity aside, credit where it’s due. This is an original movie. It doesn’t give a damn about typical Hollywood storylines and story structures. That would have been great if the movie was actually good. But it’s not. It’s a mess… but it’s possible it might be better on second viewing now that I know what the movie is about and where its going. But I don’t want to sit through its overly long runtime again.
I say skip Mute unless you just love cyberpunk stories, Alexander Skasgard, Paul Rudd as a bad guy, or movies that are willing to take a risk. Or avoid it since it’s bad.
Score: 58