Warning: Spoilers aplenty if you click “Continue reading”
I should probably take back that title. I have seen many well-crafted, cinematic cutscenes in video games over the years, and comparing Mortal Engines to them is an insult to the video games. The visuals look good, but the movie fails on every single level otherwise. It’s an empty package with a nice wrapper IF you’re still into the steampunk vibe. If you, like me, think steampunk has been played out for a decade, then the visuals might not even hold that much appeal.
The setup is a standard “nations started a war and blew themselves up” post-apocalyptic dystopia. The twist here is that survivors mounted their cities on gigantic tank treads to make them mobile, leading to a condition of “municipal Darwinism” whereby larger cities hunt down smaller communities and consume them for resources. To the east, the members of the Anti-Traction League, who don’t think mounting their cities on treads is a good idea, live in relatively good conditions, protected by an impregnable shield wall. It’s an interesting idea, and so much could have been done with it. Unfortunately, Mortal Engines does very little.
London in Mortal Engines. IMDb.com.
The plot is a formulaic combination of revenge flick and destroy the super-weapon before the bad guy can deploy it. There aren’t any real characters. All the actors are simply given archetypes to blandly play. There are a number of pointless subplots that don’t go anywhere. There’s an insulting number of instances of people being saved at the last second by some person/thing showing up at precisely the right time. There are a several moments that are clearly intended to be heroic sacrifices or dramatic deaths, but they all fall flat because the audience is never given any reason to care about any of the characters.
The film constantly and blatantly rips off far better works. There’s a Death Star-like super weapon which a hotshot young and handsome pilot (Robert Sheehan) must disable by flying into the city’s core and blasting away. Kid you not, there’s an “I am your father” moment. To be fair, though, that’s in the source material.
There’s an unkillable zombie cyborg who acts and looks like a Terminator. He pretty much kills anyone who gets in his way and destroys entire towns. When he’s no longer needed by the plot, though, he simply rolls over and dies for no apparent reason. As he dies, what he remembers of his human life flashes before his eyes, and we’re treated to a maudlin montage of memories as sad music plays. It’s a heavy-handed and completely unsuccessful attempt to make us feel sad for this soulless monster.
Mortal Engines. IMDb.com.
The main protagonist, Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) gets the same treatment as Art3mis/Samantha from Ready Player One. She’s horribly disfigured in the book, with a big chunk of her face missing. But we can’t have our empowered strong female lead be ugly, now can we, so the movie version of Hester is quite attractive with a couple scars that aren’t all that disfiguring.
Hera Hilmar in Mortal Engines. IMDb.com.
It’s almost unfair to comment on the acting because the cast was given so little to work with. Suffice it to say that none of the actors were able to breathe any real life into the 2-dimensional cardboard cutouts that passed for characters in this film. In particular, Hugo Weaving’s talents were completely wasted.
The only silver lining here is that Mortal Engines is currently tanking so hard at the box office that sequels seem mercifully unlikely.
Overall rating: 3/10