So, Mortal Engines, let's be honest. Peter Jackson is one of the best movie directors in the industry, and Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit rank among my personal favorite film series of all time. So, when I heard Mortal Engines was not only a box office bomb, but was also slammed by critics, I was rather surprised. It's got epic fight/chase scenes, amazing special effects with conventional models rather than CGI, what's not to love?
As it turns out, more than I expected. I wouldn't necessarily call the characters "flat," but it's the closest term I can think of. Hester Shaw is the girl that got screwed over by her mother's friend and wants revenge, Thomas is the city boy that wants to realize his dream of becoming a pilot, Valentine is the megalomaniac villain who builds a deadly weapon, Anna Fang is the rebel and leader of the resistance, and Shrike, where do I even begin with him? To be honest, I never really understood the point of having Shrike in the story. I get that he's there to add tension whenever Valentine is busy working on his city-destroying weapon, but ultimately, he's just a cyborg who takes other people's word a little too literally, and their attempt to lay it on thick with his death didn't impress and in fact nearly made me cringe.
As for the story, it was compelling at times, but outside of character development moments, it never really captivated me like Lord of the Rings did. Granted, there were moments outside the chase and fight scenes that were interesting, but many of these didn't come until the end, like the twist that Valentine is Hester's father. I also don't think the movie's premise is very believable. The premise is that Humans developed some kind of "quantum weapon," and used it to devastate the planet. Those that survived did so in giant mobile cities, preying on smaller cities to gather resources. Aside from the fact that there's this whole "we did this to ourselves" trope, which I never find believable, the idea of mobile cities just doesn't seem realistic. To move something as big as London would consume several hundreds of gallons of fuel per second. It's a little more believable, given that it's fueled by scrap rather than gasoline, but I still don't think that it would be feasible, either with modern technology or post-apocalyptic technology a thousand years from now.
I personally believe that the premise would've been better if it had been shown to us rather than told up-front, kind of like in Venom, or how Thomas coaxes Hester's story out of her. This is because it's generally more interesting to try to piece together the story's premise yourself, rather than have it told to you. Instead, we have Shrike (at least I'm assuming it was Shrike, because I'm not sure myself) tell us what happened as the opening credits roll.
Ultimately however, despite it's flaws, Mortal Engines does have it's good points, notably in the special effects, which were done with models rather than CGI, and that ultimately makes the movie look believable, at least at first glance. The fight and chase scenes were also really well done. Granted, I think a main character sacrificing themselves is more interesting than some background character doing so, like in the final battle against London, but it still is a great movie.
While the movie may be a revenge story, make no mistake. Mortal Engines is a monster movie, it's just with giant mobile cities instead of Godzilla. At one point, they even refer to London as "the beast," so that's what solidified it as a monster movie in my mind. If you're looking for a revenge story, then Mortal Engines is a reasonable inclusion in your "to watch" list. If you want said story to have great effects and epic chase scenes, then that's another check. If you want the story to be compelling however, then you should probably look somewhere else. I will say as a general audience member, I loved it. And while the premise may be unrealistic, I'll give it a pass only because it resulted in some epic-looking predator cities. I give Mortal Engines three stars out of five.
Submitted December 27, 2018 at 05:16AM by ThexLoneWolf http://bit.ly/2ENWjte
