A pirate wanders out of the sea and tells a Hell’s Angel to spread the word that “It’s a mutiny!” He then goes around to the various hippies, dopers, rockers, and dune buggy enthusiasts to round up everyone they know to meet at the Pirates World amusement park for a free concert. Woodstock it is not.
Then again, what do you expect when you hire the man who made Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny to make a rock concert movie?
The first half of this movie is slow going, mostly because it’s so repetitive. People are seen milling about, listening to rock bands, or going on and on about some special formula in their lab when someone bursts in and says, “It’s a mutiny!” This leads to long scenes of people riding around on garbage trucks, dune buggies driving cautiously through beaches, and parkgoers milling about Pirates World (which was also the setting for Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny). Once the music finally kicks in, it’s nothing to write home about. One singer sounds like Janis Joplin and another sounds like Joni Mitchell, but neither of them are very good.
In the last twenty minutes, things perk up with Iron Butterfly does their big hit “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. I say in the last twenty minutes because that’s just about how long the song goes on. I like the song as much as the next guy, but there’s a reason why they cut it down when it’s played on the radio.
The ending is especially infuriating. A blond kid, who’s spent the entire movie trying to chase down the pirate to give him a letter just misses him when he disappears into the sea. Frustrated, he opens up the letter, which reads, “THE END”. If that asshole opened it about seventy minutes sooner, it would’ve saved us all a lot of trouble.
Some fun can be derived from the dated fashions, and some of the odd non-musical moments are semi-amusing. That's not nearly enough to justify its existence though. If I had to guess, I’d say director Barry Mahon filmed a bunch of concert scenes and didn’t know what to do with them. He added the half-assed pirate narrative and released it, hoping it would simultaneously be a Woodstock-esque concert film AND a advertisement for Pirates World. Ultimately, Musical Mutiny, like the pirate character, is better off in the middle of the ocean.
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