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Mutant Aliens Movie Review

Mutant Aliens is a 2001 animated science fiction comedy film written, animated and directed by Bill Plympton. It’s a crazy, but artistic movie.

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“You can’t drag race with Jesus“

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Marooned by design in a strange asteroid inhabited by bizarre creatures, a left-for-dead astronaut miraculously heads back to Earth with a band of abominable mutant aliens to tie up some loose ends, after twenty long years in oblivion. This was another of Bill Plympton’s movies to be awarded at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and it’s another solid flick from the director.

This movie is pretty much on par with ‘I Married a Strange Person!’, though as a fan of science fiction I might have even preferred this movie over that one. Clearly the SF elements here are not serious in any shape or form, but it still does function as this surreal, odd and idiosyncratic take on a space opera. At times the movie was even positively unhinged in some of its imagery.

There is almost no characterization to be found here whatsoever with maybe the main astronaut getting the most development, but even he was underdeveloped. The voice acting is only okay and the same goes for the sound design, but the score is pretty strong and the animation is obviously the highlight of this feature.

Mutant Aliens features some of the most inventive and unique character designs out there. The animation in this flick is both fluid and quite accomplished as so many of these creatures change shape and form, making for memorable imagery throughout. The colorful aesthetic coupled with crazy movements and surreal style made for a very artsy feature that is best seen exactly for those visuals.

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Was there ever a hornier animator than Bill Plympton? Hardly. This guy is so sex-obsessed judging from his movies as so much of the runtime here was devoted to characters banging each other in pure ecstasy. It is ridiculous and hilarious watching these aliens have sex and those scenes even reached disturbing territory at times. The plot hinted at something interesting in the second act, but eventually it never went anywhere as it was overly simplistic and just another excuse for Plympton to go all in with his obsessions and artistic inclinations.