Mortal Engines - Frustrating

One of the worst feelings you can have when walking out of a movie is frustration. When you go through the trouble of buying your ticket, getting your overly priced snacks, struggling to get a good seat (assuming the theater in question doesn't have reserved seating), you are at least comfortable with the knowledge that you are about to be transported to another world that will entertain you and enrich your life. That is unless you end up going to see this garbage. Mortal Engines is a loud, brash, hyperactive, and unforgivably dull assault on your senses and especially your time. Don't let the fact that it advertises itself as "From the Filmmakers of Lord of the Rings" fool you because it contains nothing of what made those movies so special. The only thing that prevents this movie from being as awful as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (the worst movie of the year) is that, at the very least, there was an attempt to do something different, give rising artists a chance at their own project, and present an unusual story that seemed worthy of a big screen adaptation. Even so, it fails miserably on all counts! 

Based on the book by Philip Reeve, the story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where nations and cities have rebuilt themselves as mobile megacities, traveling the ravaged lands in search of resources. London has become the most powerful and dangerous of them all as it devouring everything in its path. Our "protagonist" is a young girl named Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) who is out for revenge against the man who killed her mother. Who turns out to be the semi-leader of London. However, as the events unfold, it turns out that there is a sinister plot unfolding underneath the great mobile city. Now, Hester must solve the mystery before it's too late. 

I know that description is vague, but that's mainly because there's too much plot to summarize in a single paragraph. The script for this movie is overloaded with too much plot and not enough story. About 85% of the dialogue is just exposition meaning no one ever develops as a character. It suffers from all of the same problems as The Last Airbender (the movie and not the show) where it tries to summarize too much world building in a small runtime. It is poor screenwriting that does not belong in such an expensive movie. 

The film was directed by Christian Rivers who is actually a storyboard artist. While he has a talented eye from production design, he is not a storyteller. Nor is he really a filmmaker. He has no eye for composition, zero skill in assessing a script, no clue how to manage actors, and is utterly incompetent in assembling action scenes. Which is an issue because this whole film is really just one great big action scene after another with nothing in between. I understand that this is his very first feature film as director, but he should have know better than to believe that he was ready for the task when he really was not. Alternatively, someone should have known better than to hire him in the first place. Mr. River's directing future does not look very promising. 

The cinematography is probably the second most frustrating aspect of this film. I could count on one hand the number of times the camera actually stood still and allowed the moment to speak for itself. Otherwise, it is continually flying around every chance it gets trying to make everything it looks at feeling more epic than it really is. Not to mention the colors and lighting make everything look flat and lifeless. It felt like an amusement park motion simulator where it's basically a giant crane arm up against a giant screen creating the illusion of free movement. Except it's not very useful in the theater because the seats are not moving with the action. Even if it were, it would still not be a pleasant experience. 

It would take another five paragraphs to go over everything wrong with this film! The editing is choppy and fails to connect scenes properly, the sound design is too loud and aggressive, the music is dull and repetitive (the composer was Junkie XL credited under a pseudonym in case you were wondering), and none of the characters have any sympathetic or relatable qualities to them. This is the cinematic equivalent of a petulant teenager trying too hard to be taken seriously by shouting to everyone about how deep and sophisticated he is when he's really just a hollow shell desperate for attention. This may have been made by the same people who worked on Lord of the Rings in some capacity, but they all chose not to play to their strengths and, worst of all, they forgot to add a heart. 

Stay as far away from this film as possible. It will only bring you pain. 

Is this movie worth seeing? 

No 

Is it worth seeing in theaters? 

No

Why? 

It's dull, loud, brash, and frustrating just how much wasted potential was there. It will scar you in ways you never thought imagined. 

Ladies & gentlemen, I am TheNorm, thank you all for reading.