Movie Breakdown: Mortal Engines

Pre-Screening Stance:

I’ve yet to see a single good piece of marketing for Mortal Engines.  And yet, I’ve still got some faith in the film since it was written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.  They did pretty well together on The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy.

Post-Screening Ramble:

For the last day or so I’ve been trying to come up with at least one thing I liked about Mortal Engines, and the best I’ve got to offer is that it generally looks pretty cool.  Otherwise, the film belongs in a high concept sci-fi shit pile with other efforts like Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, Jupiter Ascending and Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets.  You’d think that a film with a post-apocalyptic setting that features mobile, resource-gobbling mega-cities would make for an exciting spectacle, but there is nothing fun about this movie.  Its pace drags and drags, there’s no humor to be had, and you’re never given a single reason to care about anything that’s happening.  This last bit is largely due to the film’s two loathsome leads – Hera Hilmar (as the shitty attitude-wielding Hester Shaw) and Robert Sheehan (as the unfortunately plucky Tom Natsworthy).  Neither register as remotely likeable, nor do they have an ounce of chemistry with each other, and honestly I spent most of the movie rooting for them to fail.  Hell, even Hugo Weaving seems to just be getting by in Mortal Engines, and he’s usually good for something interesting.

if I hadn’t seen Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald, I’d be more than willing to peg Mortal Engines as the year’s biggest disaster.  You should not bother with this boring mess.

One Last Thought:

There’s a key moment towards the end of Mortal Engines where Tom – in the midst of a life or death situation with no time to spare – stops to slowly pick out a new, completely useless jacket for himself.  From then until the credits hit the screen, I screamed inside my head.

One Final Last Thought:

Everything in this film looks great except Stephen Lang’s Shrike.  His character is a Terminator-like creation, and the FX for him are somehow worse than the actual Terminator movie that came out in 1984.  How is that possible?