Mortal Engines Review

Mortal Engines saw the return of Peter Jackson to blockbuster filmmaking with one of the most insane entries in the post-apocalyptic genre.

In the future Earth has been devastated by the Sixty Minutes War. Because of this, towns and cities have become motorised with the biggest settlements preying on the smaller ones. London is one of the biggest and most ruthless cities in Eurasia.

In London is Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan), a young historian who seeks out tech and plans to destroy any ancient weapons. Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) is a woman who plans to get kills Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving) as revenge for killing her mother. Both must work together when there are forced into the wastelands.

Mortal Engines was based on the first novel in Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines Quartet series. These were critically acclaimed young adult novels. However, what works on the page sometimes doesn’t work on the screen. Mortal Engines had a crazy premise because it has towns and cities playing a giant game of Agar.io and it was set in a world that was depleted of natural resources yet it probably takes more resources to make cities into giant vehicles than they ever would harvest from small towns. Even as a high concept idea it’s ludicrous.

Mortal Engines was one of the most densely packed films I have seen in a long time. It tries to tell a lot of story and does a lot of worldbuilding. A novel allows for some breathing space so information can sink in. Mortal Engines only had two hours to do all its world-building and setting up its factions. This film had the opposite problem to The Hobbit Trilogy because it had too little time to tell so much. Mortal Engines had to set up both Tom and Hester’s backstories and motivations, set up the factions like the Anti-Traction League, show what the villain’s plot was, and had an undead cyborg hunting down the heroes.

Mortal Engines could have worked as a Studio Ghibli film. The post-apocalyptic setting and dangerous ancient technology along with moving homesteads made Mortal Engines seem like a combination of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Howl’s Moving Castle. Or the Mortal Engines could have worked as an anime series because anime is generally able to combine various high concepts into one show. Mortal Engines had a bit of Star Wars in it because the climax involved a ragtag team of rivals having to stop an evil empire from using their superweapon.

Peter Jackson was heavily involved in the production: he produced the film through his production company, and he co-wrote the screenplay with his regular writing partners, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens. But directing duties were handed over to Christian Rivers, Jackson’s storyboard artist and visual effects supervisor. Rivers’ experience shows because Mortal Engines was a visual feast of CGI. The film started with an excellent sequence where London chases down a small town, and there were cool action scenes like when Tom tries to chase Hestor as a town gets demolished and Shrike (Stephen Lang) causing mayhem in the Anti-Traction League’s Headquarters.

The film went for a steampunk look. It was dirty and industrial, especially in the lower levels of London. Technology had gone backward in this world because London ran on big machinery and the operating system was more like the Titanic’s than an advance civilisation.

Whilst the inclusion of Shrike the cyborg seemed out of place in the film he did have an effective subplot. He took care of Hester after her mother and raised her like a daughter despite the fact he was an unfeeling zombie machine. The idea was used in Terminator Genisys where a Terminator was sent back in time to raise and protect Sarah Connor, but Mortal Engines did it a lot better because they actually showed Hestor’s childhood with Shrike. I could have watched a whole film about those two.

Tom and Hester did have standard character arcs. Tom was a sheltered intelligential who did want to become an aviator. He had to learn how to survive in the wilderness and discover his rebellious heart. Hester was a woman who was cold and hardened due to her childhood and had to accept she had emotions. Both end up getting embroiled in world-changing events. It was basic screenwriting.

Mortal Engines attempted to do a lot in a short space of time. It does provide the visual spectacle that would be expected from a big-budget action-adventure film and it does make decent popcorn entertainment.