Trying to figure out where to begin when discussing Duncan Jones’ Netflix Original, Mute, is like trying to finish a puzzle with pieces that don’t even belong to the puzzle. Nothing fits, sticks, works, or operates on a competent, enjoyable, or well made level. A half-star rating may seem a bit egregious or over the top, but Mute fails on every conceivable level as a movie. It’s almost insulting that this film felt the need to look so much like Blade Runner to tell it’s historically awful story about...whatever the hell this movie was about. The story follows a regular man named, Leo, who is a mute. He lost his voice in a family boating accident (as shown in the first scene of the film), and now it’s 30 years later in Berlin for some unknown reason. Right off the bat the film commits a venial sin in not even giving Mute a LICK of exposition. The world we see just exists and we’re supposed to take it as is. No characters have a foundation, the setting was picked by Jones by spinning a wheel with 12 random locations on it, and we just so happened to get Leo, in Berlin, in 2048 (maybe ?), and he’s in love with this girl. Of whom we also know nothing about. Mute basically starts like a Mad Libs book, and it only gets worse. Like most great movies, they nail the exposition and during that time they present, or foreshadow a theme or message that’ll work as an undercurrent throughout the film. Mute, also doesn’t abide by this rule and rather makes the film about anything you want it to be out. Is it about family? Jones might think so, but it’s definitely not conveyed that way. Is it about relationships? Friendship? Pedophilia? Violence? Minorities? Misunderstanding? It’s up to you to try and endure this film another 10+ times to even begin to formulate an idea as to what Mute is trying to say throughout it’s tedious runtime. Once the theme or messages are foreshadowed, the setting explored, our knowledge of the characters growing as each minute passes we begin to enter the, “rising action” phase. The problem is, is that Mute doesn’t amount to anything. It, once again, just strings together scenes with no importance. It’s a directorial mishap for the ages, and this is only scratching the surface of a very deeply troubled, flawed, and frustratingly annoying film. Before making this review redundant you should get the point that Mute doesn’t follow the basic principles of telling a story. It’s a wannabe Blade Runner (Jones even takes shots and lighting techniques RIGHT out of Scott’s film) that ends up being a science-fiction equivalent to a bad bowl of Jambalaya. It’s a sickening concoction of random pieces thrown into a pot together and mixed together by what is surely the offspring of a bad day at the office version of Bill Nye and Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor. It’s a sick, twisted, nearly insulting piece of film-making that should make anyone look at Netflix and ask them, “What the hell they’re doing?!” Mute is another Netflix flop of monumental proportions. Any film that walks the line of justifying pedophilia and not treating such a gross subject matter with more respect and delicacy says ENOUGH about how awful Mute is. It’s as bad as what Michael Bay does in his Transformers films and Mute further showcases that Duncan Jones isn’t even a one trick pony, he’s just a pony. A bland, uninspiring, frustrating, nuisance of a director and the fact that Netflix is just allowing garbage like this to get a base to launch off of is a slap in the face to the few good films they put out. Netflix is out of control and will produce ANYTHING they get their hands on because it doesn’t get any worse than Duncan Jones’ Mute. Mute gets a 10/100