Review of Mortal Engines (2018) by Greg C — 16 Dec 2018

Mortal Engines is a perfect example of how viewers don't care how cool it looks, if you give us forgettable characters and fill it with predictable and overused tropes. The tropes were atrocious and the script was pure cringe. I would say this movie is like a knock-off version of Star Wars Rouge One at its best. The premise is amazing and it would have made a fantastic TV show. It reminds me of Valerian, amazing world building, I would play an RPG in this setting for sure, but the script was extremely weak. I wanted to like it, but it was an epic fail.

SPOILERS: The main protagonist was a weak version of Catnis Everdeen, her backstory is badass, raised by an evil adoptive parent, and survived in the outlands at 8 years old. But apparently, she's weaker than a dweeby museum curator, also conveniently a pilot, who ends up protecting her like a lame Han Solo. She of course falls in love with him. There was no reason for this love, and it was creepy and cringy af.

The main villain was played by Hugo Weavings and he did amazing considering the trash script. But it wasn't enough for me to care about the (obnoxiously) predictable "I am your Father" moment. Or that relationship at all.

The best character in the film was a terrifying undead cyborg-man, who raised the protagonist, and wanted to turn her into an undead robot to save her from the burden of human emotions. I would compare him to Thanos, in the emotional appeal. His death was the only one I cared about. But, you could have cut the cyberman/terminator from the film and it wouldn't have made a dent.

I expected more battles between large cities. What we got instead was a lot of airship vs. city, ala Luke and the Death Star. Shut it down from the inside with a well placed shot to the core of the city. The pilots of the other ships seemed like they would be really interesting characters, but they decided to kill them all off like the throw away X-wing pilots.These pilots were cannon fodder and obviously checked off the diversity box. The main cast was all white and they really wanted us to like the Asian Neo (Matrix) badass with a cool gun, but they didn't give us any chance to care before they killed her too. It was just a string of misplaced tropes.

The horrible tropes aside, everything the story needed for us to care about the characters was either cut, or left out of this film adaptation. I expect that the extended version, which I imagine is like four hours, would help the story a lot. It was basically a montage of shots connecting too many threads in a short period of time.

You also gotta know that those poor actors have no idea what this world is like as 99% of everything is CG. The only new experience you will get from the film is the impressive visuals done by Weta Digital. If you don't care about that, then there is no reason to see it.