Based on the first part of Philip Reeve's successful series of young-adult sci-fi novels, Mortal Engines certainly can't be accused of lacking a high concept: it's another post-apocalyptic world, yes, but here the imagination behind it has gone into mental overdrive. Some time after a cataclysmic global war, mankind has regressed on one level to a steampunk level of technology where 21st-century artefacts such as toasters are a source of wonder, and on another developed a ridiculous civilisation where big cities roam the wastes on caterpillar tracks, hunting down smaller settlements for scarce resources. This gives rise to a quite stunning opening to the film, where the alpha predator city of London, run on severely socially-stratified lines, pursues a village.
The film continues to benefit from its awe-inspiring visuals and set design, with the city a baffling fusion of modern London, with St. Paul's Cathedral at its summit, and industrial machinery on a massive scale. But the plot itself runs out of steam, settling into a bog-standard young heroes (with Tom Sheehan as a second-rate stand-in for Eddie Redmayne in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) trying to stop a nasty megalomaniac (Hugo Weaving, for whom this kind of role is bread and butter). It could have benefitted from a more adult approach to the consequences of its violence and political implications, but also getting very derivative of anything else in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, until a finale which is a straight rip-off of Star Wars: A New Hope does not help. It flopped in a big way, and as a consequence the follow-up parts may never see the light of day. Shame.
4/10
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