Rent-Worthy: Mortal Engines

An aggressively underwhelming viewing experience.

 

I was at a comic show back in February, the kind with an hourly raffle drawing. As they read the one o’clock winning number, I was delighted to find that I was the lucky winner. I never win anything like this. I almost didn’t know how to react. I excitedly sauntered up to the front to claim my prize. I was handed a box Funko Pops, a collectible that I do not actually collect. Oh well. Maybe I could start. I opened the box to find it filled with the entire line of figures from Mortal Engines, a movie I had not seen, but was interested in. Of course, I was aware of its performance, or lack thereof, at the box office. I decided to reserve my judgment on the quality of my prize until I saw the movie.

A few weeks later, Mortal Engines was released on video and I finally took the time to watch it. I can now officially say that my set of Mortal Engines pops are the worst prize I have ever won.

 

Why it did poorly(probably)

• To be fair, this opened the same week as Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse, which was a top notch movie that was well reviewed. Also, to be fair, Mortal Engines was terrible and didn’t stand a chance anyway. Then it got bowled over in its second weekend by Aquaman, Mary Poppins, and Bumblebee. The real question here is, why, after seeing how bad of a film they had on their hands, didn’t Universal push this movie off until January or February where it stood at least a tiny chance of almost breaking even? They threw this thing to the wolves and didn’t look back.
• The lack of star power. A movie with this big of a budget needed more well-known source material or a bigger name or two to sell it to the general public. Hugo Weaving is a fine actor, but even at his peak ten years ago, he wasn’t a name to sell a movie on. The average person has no idea who any of the other people in this movie are. Universal tried to push this movie based almost solely on the fact that Peter Jackson produced it. Not directed, produced. That’s a weak sell to anyone not wearing prosthetic elf ears on the regular.

What I Enjoyed

Nothing. This was easily one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen that had a theatrical release. I don’t even care about how cool some of the special effects were, because what they depicted was either so boring or mindless that I couldn’t appreciate them.

 

What I Didn’t Enjoy

• Hera Hilmar plays the protagonist, Hester Shaw. Through what is likely no fault of her own, her screen presence can best be described as stoically uninterested. Many of the other actors (Hugo Weaving and Robert Sheehan) try to do the best with what they have, but it’s pretty clear early on that what they have is close to nothing.  
• This whole movie is a giant coincidence. Every survival, success, triumph, anything, happens by pure chance. It’s almost a feat to be admired, as I don’t think I could continue to come up with that many deus ex machina-type situations if you paid me as much as someone got paid to write that movie. Speaking of the writing, this was written by the same people that wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of the most poetic and poignant movies I have ever seen. I absolutely can’t wrap my head around this. The story is full of cliches and commonly used tropes. I don’t know if this is the fault of Philip Reeve, or the writers of the film, but someone should answer for what happened with this monstrosity.
• Basically, everything else in the film. There is so little in there that didn’t make me groan or roll my eyes. The logic quandaries that this movie poses are nearly endless.

WTF Moments

There were a few moments in the film that left me speechless. In a bad way.

• Physics. Something that large just couldn’t move. I don’t know the math on it, but I bet I’m right. 
• The mobile cities, or traction cities, eat smaller cities and settlements and turn them into fuel. The process is shown as the metal pieces of the victims being burned in giant furnaces to fuel the city. I hate to bring physics into this again, but burning metal doesn’t make energy. It actually takes a lot of energy to burn metal. It seems counter-intuitive.
• They have managed to put wheels on cities and create engines powerful enough to move them, but they haven’t figured out any sort of communication devices.
• There were countless moments in the movie where characters contradicted things they previously said or acted blatantly out of character from what had been established earlier. There’s just too many to list. Trust me, it’s one giant middle finger to logic and continuity.

 

The Verdict

This movie is bad, and not in the “so bad it’s fun to watch” kind of way. It just oozes laziness and failed potential. So it’s basically a teenager. And it feels like it was made by one, too.

Final Rating: Just Don’t