Film of the Week: Mortal Engines

Whilst it was an entertaining film, I couldn’t help but be left with the notion of wanting more. The story set up the premise of the world’s major cities being turned into massive moving vehicles, roaming about and hunting for fresh resources, and that’s what I expected to see. But what happened was equivalent to that of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, where it set up a massive battle against the entire Caribbean, where all pirates unite to stand up for what they believe in – but what we got was only two ships fighting either side of a giant whirlpool where everyone else stood to one side and watched. Mortal Engines only focused on the city of London, we saw no other city.

Whereas I can see why London was the only city featured, due to budget reasons, the complicated sets, the story itself primarily following two characters as they tried to stop the city of London from taking over the world. The story shown was entertaining, but I just believed there’d be more cities featured, or maybe I’ve misunderstood.

However, bringing the City of London to life in that new world – with the prominent landmarks still standing out, and the use of the London Eye as an elevator to get from one floor to another – all of that was outstanding visuals. The post-apocalyptic life forcing people to think of different ways to survive when the resources eventually run out – and going over the top with a weapon that can obliterate everything in its way – that makes sense, and so we the audience have a reason to be invested in these characters who are attempting to stop the city from using its weapon. Hester Shaw wants to bring down Thaddeus Valentine, who killed her mother when Hester was young – and is the brains behind the deadly weapon, even going behind the mayor’s back. Tom, who is just trying to make ends meet on board the city, intervenes when Hester attempts to kill Valentine, and ends up being pushed off the city. Together, they discover Valentine’s plan and fight to bring down the weapon.

It is a nail-biting, action packed ride, I just hope, if ever there is a sequel, we get to see more cities.

A film on that scale, understandably it would take a long time to make, so of course, for budget reasons, logically having only one city is the only route to take – especially when there is so much production needed for design purposes, and for the rest of the film. For what they did with only one city, I found enjoyable and would definitely recommend. I just can’t help but get that strange feeling at the back of my mind where I genuinely believed there’d be more cities involved. It’s a negative point that I can’t fully justify purely for the reasons of their not being any unnecessary for the negative point to exist.

Mortal Engines draws parallels to my experience with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, but the latter did blatantly make us all believe we were going to get more than what we actually got, whereas Mortal Engines, for me personally, gave a subtle notion that my mind ran away with without me having any control over it. It’s strange, but that’s my overall opinion on the film.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)