There’s a severe lack of originality in Mutant. The 2024 Chinese sci-fi movie that dropped on Prime Video is a pretty terrible cocktail of every single science-fiction franchise you can imagine—from Star Wars to Terminator to Matrix. The acting is worse than you can imagine; the action is amateurish, and the less said about the writing, the better. That said, the final twist is so ludicrous that it sort of makes sense, actually. If you’re unfortunate enough to catch Mutant and not sure what happened in the end, I’m here to help. My apologies if you’ve enjoyed watching it; art is a very subjective thing after all.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens in the Movie?
It’s always a scientist who means well who accidentally ruins everything, right? When Doctor Zhurong developed this advanced AI, Simu, he never thought his creation would one day be responsible for bringing darkness into this world. All Zhurong wanted was to make Simu think and feel like a human, so he put a Tianrong chip in it. But the plan backfired, and Simu decided to take control of the world, with other AIs around. Of course, it killed the good doctor and made his daughter an orphan.
That’s all in the past. A decade has passed, and the world is now under the control of AIs, and Simu is basically Sauron. However, there’s a bunch of humans who’re trying their best to win an impossible battle against the AIs, and our hero, Captain Jin Yi, is one of them. The movie begins with the captain’s team getting attacked by robot dogs, and their computer programmer getting killed before fixing something called the “Thorne Programme.” Just when the Captain and the rest of his team are about to be blasted by AI drones, a mysterious stranger with a robot dog saves the men by hiding them in an underground bunker.
Who’s An’xin, and what does she want?
Of course the film takes its sweet time revealing this, but I guess we all figured it out the moment the mysterious stranger turns out to be this young woman, who calls herself An’xin. She’s Dr. Zhurong’s daughter. How else would you explain her having a great bunker with so many facilities? Anyway, An’xin and the Captain hit it off really well, but she refuses to join the resistance and even asks the men not to go against the all-powerful AI as they’re going to fail. But the captain and his men are bravehearts who would sacrifice their lives before they’d stop fighting for a better tomorrow. Sadly, right after getting out of the bunker, Captain’s team is attacked again, and this time everyone but him dies. An’xin’s robot dog and bunker both get destroyed, but she gets away on a motorcycle and also rescues Captain. I’m not going to go into how technically impossible the scene where An’xin is rescuing the Captain looks because it’s futile.
Anyway, Captain is really injured, but An’xin nurses him back to health. In the middle of all this, they fall in love, which was an inevitability. Although they never say it out loud, unfortunately. Even though An’xin continuously pleads Captain to abandon the pointless fight and build a shelter with her (that’s basically proposing, in this world), the dude is hellbent on reaching Mount Zong and handing the Thorne Programme (it’s in a small tablet kind of device, that’s the best I can put it) to one General Jin, who’s the leader of the Resistance, I suppose. So they basically “Mad Max” their way to Mount Zong, battling strange creatures, fending off random AI attacks, and also saving a baby.
What is the plan to win the war?
It’s General Jin who recognizes An’xin as Zhurong’s daughter. He’s understandably skeptical about her and asks Captain if he had already shared the masterplan to beat the AIs with his “girlfriend.” The captain assures him that he hasn’t and also lets the general know that An’xin is not his girlfriend (oh well!). Anyway, coming to the masterplan, it’s basically attacking the AI Hq and killing Simu and the rest with the Thorne Programme. An’xin is sad that Captain has to go, as it means his imminent death, but he has made up his mind already. She requests him to leave her on their way, and before parting ways, An’xin leaves Captain a weapon that would help him against the AI robots (sadly, it doesn’t).
Does An’xin Save Humanity?
I didn’t quite expect Captain to die, even though An’xin kept foreshadowing it (my bad, I didn’t believe her). Anyway, Captain’s death is quite meaningful actually, and he also gets to have a small reunion with An’xin. How can she not come to save him, after all? But despite An’xin appearing with her Millennium Falcon (not sure where that was before, but again, I’m not going to ask idiotic questions like that), Captain dies at the hands of an AI, which could fit very well in any Transformer movie. His last words, however, set the tone for the climax. Captain would rather die than live as a slave to AI. With his death, the onus of beating Simu falls on the shoulders of An’xin, who charges at the AI villain. But then comes the twist, aka the only thing that works in Mutant movie.
An’xin is no human, but an AI creation. The real daughter of Dr. Zhurong, who looked just like An’xin, died years ago, and Simu made the AI for the doctor. All Simu wanted was AIs being treated the same as humans, but the doctor argued that it was not the way of the world. Simu tried to reason with him by creating An’xin, but Zhurong still was not on the same page. He did help An’xin make someone completely human, though, someone who can think and feel. Naturally, An’xin didn’t take Zhurong’s death well, as she loved him like a father. It only made sense for her to take revenge on Simu. It’s also not surprising that she was the one who fixed the faulty Thorne Programme. With Captain gone, An’xin realizes that there’s no reason for her to exist. So she decides to happily sacrifice herself and take all the AIs down by executing the program. Simu ends up defeated, and humanity is saved finally. Isn’t it sort of ironic that an AI saved that day for the humans?
