Mortal Engines review: It looked like YA movies had at last reached the end of the road. But no. They came spluttering back to life this year with the final instalment of the Maze Runner franchise, Death Cure, and then in the summer they seemed to breathe their last with The Darkest Minds. That was that – and we all let out a sigh of relief. Except that we reckoned without Peter Jackson and a project he’d had to shelve some time ago, but was now ready to launch …..
Universal Pictures
His adaptation of Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines had taken second place to all those adventures in Middle Earth so that, despite purchasing the rights in 2009, he was only able to announce in 2016 that it was officially happening. And although he’s producing instead of directing this time, he’s also the co-writer and clearly the driving force behind the movie. One that’s still clinging on to some of the dust it gathered over those years.
The territory is familiar. Another post-dystopian world, several centuries hence, a world where, judging from all the “old tech” on show, the likes of thee and me would be referred to as “the ancients”. That “old tech” can be anything from smashed mobile phones to what would have been very high-end toasters, but in need of a repair or two. With resources extremely short after whatever catastrophe struck the planet, there are fewer cities and those that still exist are transportable, travelling to find the next energy source. London dominates, but when it overwhelms a smaller city, it takes on board a young girl who tries to assassinate its leader. He’s injured and she’s presumed dead but needs to find her way back to London to finish the job. She has good reason.
The premise of cities on wheels is engaging and London is nicely created with its mix of traditional and modern. Policemen still wear those traditional helmets, although the rest of their uniform isn’t in the same vein: the Tube stations retain their familiar logo, but the service is very different and St Paul’s still dominates the skyline, but hides a big secret. What soon becomes apparent is that the rest of the film falls well behind on all fronts. You get the feeling you’ve seen it all before – and you have, but in different places. And that impression is there right from the start: that early chase sequence between London and the smaller city looks like a cross between Mad Max:Fury Road and The Wacky Races. Remember The Creepy Coupe With The Gruesome Twosome? Later, an airborne city looks like it was designed for Monty Python. And there’s even a moment echoing a famous scene when the villain confesses to being somebody’s father.
Yes, it’s big, it’s loud, it has action and it’s had money thrown at it – an estimated $100 million – but that doesn’t necessarily make for a good film. Apart from being over-long and derivative to the point of being a mish-mash, the characters are paper thin and that makes it almost impossible for the action sequences to grab your attention, let alone your empathy. The cast are saddled with a cumbersome script so even the likes of Hugh Weaving, playing the villain, struggles to do anything with his leaden lines. And Robert Sheehan, a talented performer, isn’t given the chance to convince as a hero, unintentional or otherwise.
Whether Mortal Engines turns out to be the franchise everybody is expecting will depend on its performance at the box office. As it stands, it’s very dated stuff. It feels like it and it looks like it. A Mortal mess, in fact.
Mortal Engines review by Freda Cooper, December 2018.
