Mortal Engines 2018

When I saw the first teaser to this movie, I was like "What the hell is this? Something Peter Jackson created, that looks this fantastic? I need to watch this, even though the CGI did not look that good (yet?)". The first trailer wasn't that interesting anymore as it spoiled a lot. Still, Peter Jackson, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Lang... that could still be a good movie?

But first of all: The marketing - at least in Germany - was irritating. Peter Jackson wanted to do this movie, he held the rights to making this movie for over 8 years but couldn't get around and therefore decided to pass it on to one of his protegees: Christian Rivers, who has worked as storyboard artist and visual effects supervisor in 11 of Jackson's movies, has his directorial debut - Peter Jackson only contributed his first draft, and of course the rights and budget - which by the way is 150 million dollars - not bad for a debut. But does money equal quality?

Let's take a short look at the plot:

In a dystopian future the few survivors of a global catastrophe gathered together to form mobile predator cities and live in an world order called "Municipal Darwinism", i.e. in the great hunting ground larger cities hunt smaller cities for their resources, to enslave the people, etc. In this steampunk setting London is known as one of the most predatory cities - but the free young woman Hester Shaw wants to travel to exactly this city, because she is hoping to settle a score with one of the leaders of the city.

Peter Jackson has already proven that he has the ability to create new, unseen and absolutely fantastic worlds, and at first glance it seems like with Mortal Engines this applies as well, even though this is not really Peter Jackson. But: It's just the first glance. Yes, the world is cool, it has a lot of beautiful and interesting original ideas that we get to see. The CGI at first glance looks good - but unfortunately only at first glance. Different to Lord of the Rings, where you see a number of details, that are filmed in long slow moving camera to make sure the viewer has the ability to actually see, discover and experience all the details, in Mortal Engine you always have very fast tracking shots, so in the end, everything is blurry giving the movie makers the ability to mask the missing level of detail, as well as often also the physical plausibility of things. And that was something that really bothered me. How do the cities actually transform, or rake up to bigger cities? This happens so fast that you don't actually know - because there is no clever way they do fit together. And what are all the details in London? You don't get to see anything - there are 2-3 spots that are shown in detail - the rest is principally just a hill with a number of glowing spots, that blur due to the fast camera pace. Same with the wall. Why don't show how the people behind the wall actually live? They live a totally different life, why not celebrate it, like e.g. Lord of the Rings celebrated the introduction of Rohan? Because these details actually don't exist.

And at least to me, a movie of this caliber, with this budget and playing in such a world needs to be presented, needs to stun me. And we don't get anything.

But it's not only the graphics and setting - this is probably still the best part of the movie. Talking about the story, this movie is even worse. First, this movie is so packed, that you start to ask: Why did they not make a 2-part movie? Peter Jackson made 3 movies out of the hobbit which is a small to medium sized single children's book. But here, due to packing so much into one movie and not getting rid of certain aspects you feel like a lot of things are touched but not really explained. And this is really sad, as the story has a number of interesting parts. I would have loved to learn something about Anna Fang. Why is she hunted? What is her motivation as leader of an resistance movement? What is that resistance movements motivation? We get nothing - Anna is seen in the wanted poster in the beginning and all of a sudden she is there. The whole backstory with Shrike could have also been interesting, but is also just touched. Same with our antagonist. What is his motivation? No idea. Why does he - all of a sudden - decide to destroy something? No one will know. There are also hardly any quite moments to establish the characters, and this leads not only to the characters being really shallow, but also not rally having time to interact with each other and in the end there is absolutely no chemistry between the characters. All could die, and no one would care. And also the story telling is absolutely minimal. Most of the time is spend in an concatenation of action sequences: I feel that more than 80% was just action, and these action orgies where extremely CGI dominated, so they don't even get that exciting - and to me, after the first 2-3 action sequences I got fatigued.

In the end the actors are not challenged at all and fall far beyond what they are probably capable of, and there is not much else that the movie has to offer - I was bored after the first third of the movie, and it did not get any better till the end. A really great disappointment, I had high hopes :(

Such an interesting premise deserved a better movie (or two).

The idea of moving cities is so intriguing and I feel that the film kinda missed that. More battles between these mastodontic machines would have definitely improved the experience. In fact, the opening sequence, with the small town hunted by the gigantic London, is probably the most memorable out of the whole film.

The CGI is well done. Nothing crazy, but it looks good today and will look good 10 years from now. I love the steampunk-ish vibe that permeates everything.

The acting was ok. Weaving was good, and the others were ok. I think the script is more at fault than the actors.

That brings us to the weak point of the movie, the story. The best word I can think to describe it, is "clichéd". Are they dead after that crazy fall or are they alive? Of course they are alive. Will they fall in love or not? Of course they will. Will they stop the weapon with only a second left or not? Of course they will. Cliché are not bad in and of themselves, but when you abuse them, the whole film suffers. I felt like I already knew how the movie was gonna end.
Also, the film felt a bit rushed. It was action scene after action scene, with very little world building. Which is a shame, because that was the most interesting part. The character suffered a bit too, especially the secondary ones. How am I supposed to root for them if I don't know their ideals and motives?

In the end, this movie deserved a better script, with less cheesy one-liners (seriously, some of them were atrocious). I think that two movies, or a three hour runtime à la Lord of the Rings, would have created a much more compelling story. What it is now, is a fun movie that won't bore you, but that you also won't remember very long.
Missed opportunity.

6.5/10

P.S.: Anna Fang felt like a Trinity (from The Matrix) wannabe

So many known faces in this. Good faces, even.
Steam Punk, set in the future where the ancients, aka we, destroyed the earth? What is not to like? If this is going to be a bad movie, at least it will be a REALLY GOOD bad movie.
But I mean, come on. The whole history is amazing. Food that hasn't gone off in a thousand years (yuck), the minions as things in a museum...
But I guess that's all from the books, and I only love it because I can't compare with the original. :grimacing: Good for me.

So after watching it all, I still don't hate it. In fact, rather the opposite. What do you want from an action movie other than this? I love the characters, even though 2 hours doesn't give them enough development, but how'd you do that in an action movie? And it has so much action. Beautiful worlds... a believable world-view... beautiful scenes... I don't see the hate.

He gets the girl AND the ship in the end, and she gets... the guy, and revenge? I also want to go where the wind takes "us", see the world. And someone to say "I'll go/come with you".

I have to say that I liked this movie a lot. It is kind of fantasy, science fiction (emphasis on fiction here) and steam punk (or perhaps I should say diesel punk) mixed together.

The world is a fairly dark post apocalyptic world where moving predator cities prays on each other. The entire concept is really quite ridiculous of course but it makes for some really fantastic and spectacular special effects and I am a sucker for spectacular special effects.

In addition the overall story holds together fairly well. That is, in the context of the ludicrous world that is the background of this story in the first place of course. It is quite straightforward without too much annoying social or green preaching that plagues so many movies nowadays. Somewhat predictable but overall a good vehicle for the plentiful action.

I also liked most of the characters. Both the bad guy and the good guys had decent charisma with the exception of Tom who was a bit of a naive whiner although he got it together towards the end.

There where few flaws. Nothing really major except that, in one scene at the end, the city of London was shown against the wall and it was bloody tiny compared to the wall. The main bad guy’s last resort was to pummel London against the wall and was expected to break it down. Before in the movie London was depicted as really huge. That scene really screwed that and made him delusional.

Apart from that, end Tom’s whining and naivety, I really liked this movie. It was the kind of over the top, fantasy/fiction movie with a big budget that you do not see every day. Of course the dickwads, a.ka “critics”) at Rotten Tomatoes and other mainstream media assholes did their best to tell everyone how bad it was. As usual that’s just the stuff that comes out of the south end of a north bound bull.

Mortal Engines is the latest film from Peter Jackson's production company, WingNut Films, and directed by his long-time collaborator Christian Rivers. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where cities have been turned into massive wheels and roam the planet devouring each other for resources, the movie follows the story of London, led by Thaddeus Valentine (Weaving), and its attempt to defeat other cities and the reintroduction of destructive superweapons. Despite its big scale, packed with expansive visuals and a WingNut Films visual style, the movie falls short in terms of its bland narrative and lack of excitement. The action scenes are poorly edited and the characters, including Hester and Tom Natsworthy, lack depth. Furthermore, the writing fails to evoke the emotions the story requires, leaving it all feeling hollow. While the pacing of the movie is well done, it ultimately fails to live up to its potential.

Mortal Engines es la última película de la productora de Peter Jackson, WingNut Films, y está dirigida por su antiguo colaborador Christian Rivers. Ambientada en un mundo posapocalíptico donde las ciudades se han convertido en enormes ruedas y recorren el planeta devorándose unas a otras en busca de recursos, la película sigue la historia de Londres, dirigida por Thaddeus Valentine (Weaving), y su intento de derrotar a otras ciudades y a los reintroducción de superarmas destructivas. A pesar de su gran escala, repleta de imágenes expansivas y un estilo visual de WingNut Films, la película se queda corta en términos de su narrativa insulsa y falta de emoción. Las escenas de acción están mal editadas y los personajes, incluidos Hester y Tom Natsworthy, carecen de profundidad. Además, la escritura no logra evocar las emociones que requiere la historia, dejándolo todo vacío. Si bien el ritmo de la película está bien hecho, en última instancia, no está a la altura de su potencial.

Mortal Engines was one of those films that sort of was lost in the shuffle, for me.
It came out during that confusing period between Thanksgiving and New Years. So many other things are going on during that time- holidays with family, last minute shopping, trying to finish out the work projects before years end, and taking mini-vacations.

Flash forward 5 years later - the movie random pops up on Netflix and I am "hey, let's give it a go".

At first, I was enjoying it - it was exciting and fun. I recognized the male lead from his work on "Umbrella Academy", and of course, there is good ol' Hugo, challenging another potential baddie.

But it wasnt until the mask was dropped and we saw Hester's full face that it dawned on me who she was - and suddenly, I had to remind myself that the role she had in "See" is not the same one she has in this film. (AKA- She is not some evil witch, who can seem to die, no matter what happens to her). Took a while, but eventually, ....well, I wont have been to upset if she had mysteriously fallen to her death from the sky city....

I’m less than 30 minutes into this movie and there are so many things that don’t make any sense or are done so badly I had to pause to write this, since chances are I’m not making it another 30 minutes of watching this.

Overall, there is no worldbuilding, there is no characterbuilding, we’re hardly introduced to anything and instantly thrown into some very flawed action, flawed to the point of being annoying, more on that later. The lack of characterbuilding makes it feel like this is a sequel and the viewer missed the first movie where character backstory was established. Since that is not the case (I assume?), it’s simply not effective in making the viewer care for any of what is happening.

As for the flawed action:

Within the first five minutes there are glaring issues with how the physics are portrayed, from one part of the vessel/moving city shaking incredibly, to other parts appearing completely still, until the camera pans out and we see the vessels literally dropping and jumping dozens of meters making the difference between shots even more unrealistic, especially when it comes to the smaller vessel. The “American deities” on the big vessel are somewhat funny, but they’re in a museum on the big vessel without being secured in any way?

As we move on it only gets worse and worse every minute. Personal belongings of the capture vessel’s inhabitants are searches thoroughly, but the huge moving city (the vessel) itself just gets chopped up immediately without a single person even setting foot on it?

Two people get knocked off the big vessel with plenty of time in between, and while it’s supposedly moving at earth-shattering speeds, they both land a couple feet from each other?

On board the big vessel, primitive tech is powered by a literal hamster in a wheel (not kidding), but that same big vessel also has an aviation unit with incredibly advanced aircraft?

I really want to like this and look past the impossibility of these moving cities (it is fantasy after all), but the inconsistencies are many, too many.

There was an attempt to make something unique here, and so far, I can’t say they succeeded. I’ll continue watching this, but so far, a rating of 68% (at the time I write this) seems incredibly generous. Visually, it’s pretty pleasing, but that’s absolutely the only thing this movie has going for it.

As a huge fan of Philip Reeve's Predator Cities series of books, this movie was both satisfying and a disappointing to me. Satisfying because it is significantly better than it could have turned out (i.e. horribly), disappointing because it had the promise to be much better still. The way the movie turned it, it landed pretty much in six out of ten territory for me.

I don't believe that movies should be exact adaptations of the books they're based on, but this one adapts some segments so directly that it feels weird when it doesn't. Many of the characters in particular are watered down versions of who they were in the novels, with many of their defining characteristics taken away - which ends up affecting the relationships between many of the main and side characters.

The rest holds true for many other parts of the movie. Some sequences feel like they were storyboarded directly based on a scene in the book, while others feel foreign and don't even seem to fit in particularly well with the movies.

Ultimately the movie wastes the promise of the source material, which is rich and fascinating and could make for an awesome adaptation even if not adapted one-to-one. What we're left with is a movie that has very little focus, and as a result was also very difficult to market. It's sad that this will probably be a one-off movie, when in a better alternate universe somewhere, moviegoers are getting to see a series of sequels that perfectly capture the magic of the source material.

One can dream...

It is not an awful movie and it is entertaining, to a point. It looks allright. But that's the catch - you just have to throw enough money at those type of movies and more often than not you get something of value.
The plot on the other hand is the same old tale, told all over again. There isn't really anything new to it and it loans ideas from so many other movies and/or books. The symbolism and the massage is way out in the open, there isnt't much subtlety involved, not much thinking needed, and it's pretty much clichè. You could see the romance coming before the movie had run for 10 minutes and the main protagonists hadn't even met. All those are the trademarks of a typical made-into-movie young adult novel. I don't know the books but I understand there are four so there is a possibilty for sequels which I am not sure would interest me much.
The cast was OK at best but there isn't really much to critizise when there isn't much to play with in the first place. One mis-cast for me was Jihae, not for the role itself but in general. She has three acting credits on her resume and I've seen her in two now. I would label her as a one expression actor, she always looks the same.
Now, for teenagers, and probably more so for girls, I can see where this movie has value. If you like CGI movies the same can be applied. All others should not expect to much.