Mortal Engines movie review

MOVIE TITLE: MORTAL ENGINES

RATING: PG-13

LENGTH: 111 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE: B-

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Lots of violence and destruction.
A woman blows off a man’s head, among other brutal deaths. Some blood. High body count.
Lots of people in perilous situations.
Shriker’s glaring green light eyes and mechanical skeleton face might scare young children. He’s kind of a more frightening The Terminator machine, but with a heart…sometimes. Make up your mind, writers!
This movie is really LOUD.

IN A NUTSHELL: SNORE. Smaug meets Steampunk. The incredibly talented producer Peter Jackson, who brought us the award-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring / The Two Towers / The Return of the King Extended Editions) [Blu-ray] and The Hobbit: Motion Picture Trilogy (Blu-ray) , now presents the film adaptation of Mortal Engines. It’s a post-apocalyptic, dystopian age of predator cities.

It feels like a Steampunk version of Mad Max: Fury Road or Waterworld (I didn’t like either one.) I’ve never read the book, so I had no idea what to expect. I’m assuming the book Mortal Engines (Mortal Engines, Book 1) by Philip Reeve is much better than this movie. The only thing I know about the book is that we should expect a sequel to this film, whether we want it or not.

The title Mortal Engines is actually from Shakespeare’s Othello line “O you mortal engines, whose rude throats the immortal Jove’s dead clamours counterfeit, farewell.”

The trailer is a good indicator of whether or not you’ll enjoy the movie.

THEMES:

Courage
Revenge
Humanity
Social class systems
“You cannot ignore the lessons of the pas as if they count for nothing.” – priest

THINGS I LIKED:

Fantastic CGI.
Awesome set design.
Hugo Weaving is so fun to watch in everything he does.
Minion statues. Ha ha
The film was shipped to studios under the secret name “Squeaky Wheels.” ha ha
The female protagonist has a huge scar on her face and often covers it up, yet none of the other characters comment on it. For people who feel especially self-conscious about their appearance, they’ll really like that aspect of the film.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

There is so much action that you don’t really have time to fall in love with the characters or even care what happens to them.
I had never seen Icelandic actress Hera Hilmar before. I’m planning a trip to Iceland next Fall to see the Aurora Borealis! Sadly, I thought her performance was a bit flat. It’s especially sad because she’s the main character in the entire movie.
The Matrix Neo-like hero with the American accent (Anna Fang as Jihae) seems very out of place next to the grungy British characters of the Mad Max world.
A lot of expository scenes to let you know what the heck is going on.
While I absolutely love Peter Jackson and his incredible cinematic talents, this movie just didn’t measure up. You could tell he was trying to use some of the same formulas. For example, the narration at the beginning sounded like Smaug from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
It would drive me nuts to have to wear a scarf over my face the whole time like Hester Shaw does in the beginning.
While the CGI was extremely good, a lot of things also looked really fake.
Some moments are just forced, dumb, or don’t make sense. For example, if Striker saved Hera when she was young, why did she run away from him in fear later on? How did he get up in the sky city? Why didn’t all those planes behind the wall help Jihae?
Some of the dialogue was pretty lame. “Wait for my signal.” “How will I know?” “You’ll know. I’m not that subtle.” (sigh)
All of the Millennials are good, while anyone over 40 is evil. (sigh)
“Crash drive.” ha ha
Some of the action scenes are too busy and it’s hard to see what’s really happening.

FUNNY LINES:
* “It’s over a thousand years old.” – Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) “Doesn’t matter. The food of the ancients never goes off. It’s indestructible.” – Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar)