By: Keaton Marcus

London in Mortal Engines — London in *Mortal Engines*

Genre/Action/Adventure

Age Rating/12+

Lemonradar/50/100 “sour”

‘Mortal Engines’ does leave the audiences guessing that the creators, Peter Jackson and Co. were preparing to make an epic new saga, as teased in the massive, exhausting trailer, especially since the original book ended up a quartet. Jackson also changed the finale of the book, clearly setting up for a potential sequel. In the opening scene, while the blaring soundtrack by Junkie XL is playing, we are seeing a London on wheels chasing a generic mining town named Salthook—a visual marvel that features ridiculous, and awesome lines such as “prepare to ingest”— as audiences are sure to have fun seeing London eat the christ out of the small, speedy burg.

Overall, ‘Mortal Engines’ follows the story of a girl named Hester Shaw (Hera Himar), a girl with the intentions to assassinate her mother’s killer, Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving) who later creates a dangerous weapon that can destroy a city in a matter of seconds, called M.E.D.U.S.A, later on in the film, she meets Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) and outlaw Anna Fang (a career first performance from Jihae Kim), and team up to stop the weapon from destroying “The Shield Wall” (May or may not be a reference to Trump’s wall).

Peter Jackson— its writer and producer — and Christian Rivers are behind the visual effects and direction of ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogies, which are both critically acclaimed, creative and dazzling; The creators are trying to make a sci-fi extravaganza, with a massive, behemoth-type plot, and they are willing to borrow spare parts from many other, and better epics such as ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Mad Max’. The visuals are consistently impressive, as expected, which is pretty much the only praise needed for a film called ‘Mortal Engines’, an ambitious movie about predator cities (London)— eating smaller, weaker cities; While the eye-candy is plenty, the film is almost completely bereft of intelligence.

The screenplay by Peter Jackson, is extremely disappointing, and the writing for the seemingly two-dimensional characters, Phillip Reeve’s novel did not only have brains, but it had a compelling narrative, told from Tom’s perspective. The film adaptation, however, changes the primary character to Hester Shaw, who always seemed a secondary role in the novel— and provides her with a poorly-written script—and a loud, formulaic film around her. The performances also struggle to come out against the massive film, as the only character I felt for was an undead cyborg, called Shrike, played by veteran Stephen Lang—Otherwise, another convincing showcase was a career-first outing for singer Jihae Kim, who plays Anna Fang, an anti-traction city outlaw. Hera Hilmar and Robert Sheehan who play Tom and Hester are wasted by the lack of direction and plotting around them.

The final verdict is: 'Mortal Engines' is an ambitious film filled with dazzling eye-candy, and the creators are willing to make a sci-fi extravaganza made out of spare parts, but its unoriginal plotting, screenplay and disappointing direction make the sci-fi epic a visual marvel that feels like ‘Star Wars’ on wheels.

Peter Jackson Showdown

Mortal Engines 50% sour

Violence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Language: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Sex: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Age Rating: 12+

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 60% sweet/sour

Violence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Language: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Sex: ☆☆☆☆☆

Age Rating: 13+

Mortal Engines 50% sour

Storyline: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Cast: 2.5/5

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 60% sweet/sour

Storyline: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Cast: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

News Related to Mortal Engines

$plurge, $tream, $kip: Mortal Engines is a dazzling film, featuring occasional signs of ambition and creativity, but the script, direction and loud, incomprehensible action sequences make the novel adaptation pale compared to the fantastic source material…$KIP IT

'Mortal Engines’ bombed in the Box Office, grossing just 7.5M in its opening weekend, against an expensive 125M production cost, next weekend the film plummeted 76.8% to a sophomore frame of 1.7M.