Review of Mortal Engines (2018) by Randy N — 14 Dec 2018

Mortal Engines is based on Philip Reeve's 2001 novel and comes to audiences via producer Peter Jackson as directed by his protà (C)gà (C) Christian Rivers who served as a visual effects supervisor and storyboard artist on both of Jackson's Tolkien trilogies as well as King Kong and other projects. This is all to say that despite all of this Mortal Engines is somehow an ugly film-one that matches the grandeur of its story with its visuals only in fleeting moments, but is otherwise a bevy of good ideas executed without style and in a muddled fashion where the special effects render a picture as clear as a found footage film. This thing is fuzzy as f*&$.

I especially like the idea that after modern society-or the "ancient world" as it is referred to-was decimated in less than a minute by some kind of super weapon that society essentially revived itself and started over and a thousand years later we are back in this very Victorian-like setting except for the fact London is on wheels and barreling through the wastelands that remain of earth's land masses looking for energy sources to sustain itself. It's bonkers, for sure, but not a particularly fun kind of bonkers.

Robert Sheehan looks like the lovechild of Justin Long and Jimmy Fallon.