THE PLOT: Axel (Miguel Angel Rodriguez), a biology teacher, finds out through one of his students that the radioactive waste dumped by the Romo conglomerate is apparently causing mutations. As it turns out, the Spanish teacher at the very same school, Irina (Rossana San Juan), is in the process of getting her divorce from none other than the CEO of that company, Roberto (Gerardo Albarran). Meanwhile, Andres (Jose Manuel Fernandez), a friend of Axel who happens to be an exterminator, finds out the hard way that the mutations have spread to other areas of the city.

THE VERDICT: Whenever I stumble upon a science fiction film made in Mexico I jump at the chance of watching this most unusual of movies, but not without some trepidation. Mexican sci-fi is to be sought out for its camp value and little else. Lacking the felicities of a decent budget, experienced crews, technology and know-how to create appropriate FX, sci-fi flicks made in Mexico should be seen only by hardcore fans of really bad movies.

This is especially true of the straight-to-video fare that in the last ten years or so has been aimed at the latino market in the U.S. and can also be found in video stores in Mexico. These tapes, shot in less than two weeks with budgets beneath the $100,000 mark, are mostly comedies and action thrillers done on location and with a cast of about a dozen. The one advantage these movies have over similarly budgeted epics from America and Europe is in the acting. Videohomes, as they are known, have become a way for thespians who are no longer employed by Mexico�s ailing film industry to keep working.

Given that the most spectacular sci-fi flicks made in this country are those with masked wrestlers in them I wasn�t expecting much when I spotted Mutants of the Year 2000 at a video store. I rented it anyway and it turned out the tape wasn�t as painful as I thought it would.

Sure, the effects are a throwback to the old school sci-fi of the 50�s and 60�s. I�m talking about movies that did more than stretch credibility, like Missile to the Moon and From Hell It Came. Some would say science fiction and horror films have come a long way from stuntmen with rubber masks standing in for monsters to CGI and prosthetics. As much as I like eye candy and style over substance I have to disagree with that. The new-fangled genre movies may look a lot better than the oldies but they�re nowhere near as much fun.

Lest you think I�m talking out of both sides of my mouth here, I should make clear that I�m more interested in suspension of disbelief than in state-of-the-art technology. Suspension of disbelief has been a very important element of performing arts for thousands of years and yet, for reasons far too involved to discuss here, it has been overlooked by film scholars. Besides the simple fact that they are fun, genre movies from the 50�s and 60�s relied on a "let�s make believe" kind of storytelling that has vanished from science fiction and horror films lately.

This type of narrative is still around in genre movies made in countries like Turkey, India, Brazil and Mexico. Of course, "bad movies" from the U.S. and Europe also fit this bill. I�ll go out on a limb and declare that fans of b-movies aren�t really looking for crude, incompetent filmmaking. After all, there are plenty of boring, contrived movies coming out of Hollywood and film festivals all over the world. What the trash cinema fan is after is the kind of child-like innocence that can be found in movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space and Robot Monster.

Having said all that, I have to admit that Mutants of the Year 2000 isn�t nearly in the same category as those aforementioned classics of le bad cinema. There is enough camp value to keep any b-movie fan interested, but director/screenwriter Ruben Galindo had somewhat loftier goals than simply turning a profit and it gets in the way of the merriment.

The good news is that Galindo�s reach was far greater than his grasp. This is a good thing because the director�s efforts to give the movie a futuristic look provide some degree of amusement. Now that the year 2000 is behind us, it would be all too easy for me to make fun of Galindo�s idea of what life in the far-flung third millennium would be like.

I�ll cut Galindo some slack because I remember how excited I was as a kid about all of the neat stuff that according to the media would be readily available in the year 2000. I was born in 1975, and by the time I was 8 or so I couldn�t wait to turn 25 so I could get on a spaceship and visit Mars. There was also talk of robots doing all the work and commuters using jet packs to go to work. The one thing none of those prophets mentiones was the World Wide Web.

According to Ruben Galindo, by the year 2000 inhabitants of major cities would have to deal with dangerous levels of pollution and all animal species except for vermin would have become extinct. To hoodwink the viewer into this premise, Galindo simply overcranked a smoke machine, talked his actors into wearing gas masks and sunglasses out of doors and apparently smudged a handful of vaseline on the lens. It should go without saying that the title creatures are played by a stuntman in a rubber mask and a furry suit.

In addition to this, he had the characters go through a routine of waiting for some kind of appliance to suck the smog out of cars and houses, done by having the actors wait for some gizmo to switch from a red light to a green one. All of this was done with enough nonchalance for me to forgive the clunky effects. It�s not very convincing at all, but at least I have to admire Galindo�s ingenuity to make the most out of some very inexpensive props to set his script in the (then) future.

The cast is kept to a minimum by having only three major roles: the good guy (Miguel Angel Rodriguez), the damsel in distress (Rossana San Juan) and the villain (Gerardo Albarran). The other actors only have a few lines each. Case in point, the villain�s mistress/secretary, who only gets to utter a couple of lines of dialogue. As for locations, the director stuck mostly to Irina�s house, the school Axel and Irina work in and Roberto�s company. There are also a few fleeting glances at a restaurant and a handful of outdoors settings.

The sub-plot dealing with the exterminator and a plague of mutated rodents is hindered by the low budget, or lack thereof. Galindo shows he knows how to use camera angles to convey some degree of suspense though, and with more money there�s a good chance he could come up with a much better movie than Mutants of the Year 2000.

The biggest problem I have with the movie isn�t the low budget or sometimes illogical plot. It�s Galindo�s use of an ecological agenda as a blunt weapon that forced me to give this movie a negative review. The director/screenwriter obviously cares about the subject and it would be perfectly okay for him to state his views in a subtle, intelligent manner, except there�s nothing subtle or intelligent about the ecological statements Galindo makes here.

What we get instead is the usual nonsense about how Mother Nature needs to be saved from the ravenous beast that is mankind. I�m all for the rational use of limited resources, but I find the ranting about the way modern science has upset the natural balance of the Earth questionable at best. As far as I can tell, no one complained when vaccines, antibiotics and improvements in agriculture prevented millions from suffering through infectious disease or starvation.

I�m well aware that Mexico City is often held as an example of the ravages of pollution and I would like to make clear that, despite what you may have heard or read, the people who live here aren�t dropping dead from breathing fumes. We have other things to worry about, like a soaring crime rate and the Socialist mayor�s misguided policies.

Come to think of it, if Galindo had set Mutants of the Year 2000 in Mexico City the movie could have improved dramatically. In the last few years, the Mexican government has come up with a series of measures, such as limiting the use of cars, to curb the effects of pollution on the population. Most of these measures have failed because people have found creative ways to get around them. With a little tweaking, Mutants of the Year 2000 could have become a nifty, if black, comedy.

If you�ve read the reviews for The Fearless Vampire Hunters and Mexican Ninja, you know that Mexican filmmakers that try their hand at horror or martial arts avoid setting the story in Mexico and instead go for a kind of generic look. The same goes for Mutants of the Year 2000. The main characters have foreign names like Axel and Irina and the name of the city they live in is never mentioned.

As for the acting, it�s not too bad. Miguel Angel Rodriguez has a long history of playing cops and drug dealers and I was initially thrown for a loop when he showed up in this tape as a lowly biology professor. I should have guessed that Axel would eventually grow tired of the bad guys and start kicking some ass. Hence, Rodriguez as a teacher.

Of course, it all comes down to a showdown between Axel and Roberto, which goes on and on until it gets silly. These two spend the better part of twenty minutes punching, kicking, shooting and bitch-slapping one another. Remarkably, instead of ending up in a coma, they have enough stamina left to be chased around Irina�s house by an overgrown rat.

Fans of bad movies will also want to look at the wildly inappropriate love scene between Axel and Irina just as they are being hunted down by the title creatures. Rossana San Juan is certainly attractive and I wouldn�t mind spending some quality time with her, if you know what I mean, but I would definitely wait for any life-threatening situation to be over before making my move. Rossana San Juan does what is expected of any heroine in a sci-fi or horror flick, which is scream, run and fall down. She does it well enough but I�ll wait until I see her in a more demanding role to pass judgement on her acting abilities.

There�s enough silliness in Mutants of the Year 2000 to satisfy bad movie fans. On the other hand, if you want intelligent, well-crafted science fiction you should look elsewhere.

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