Mortal Engines (2018)

Written by CinemaSerf on April 26, 2024

From the team that brought us everything from Middle Earth comes this great to look at, but highly derivative fantasy adventure that regurgitates a hybrid of stories and spits them out pretty unremarkably. To be fair, there is charisma between the two leads - both attractive, young, and ballsy - Hera Hilmar ("Hester)' and Robert Sheehan ("Tom") as they try to thwart the maniacal ambitions of "Thaddeus Valentine" (a suitably dramatic, "Elrond" like, Hugo Weaving) who is charged with providing an uninterruptible power source for the marauding mechanical city of London. The visual effects are super, as you might expect, and the score certainly has something of the Howard Shore about it, but the relentlessness of the out of the frying pan into the fire scenarios against impossible odds just recycle themselves once too often and the ending, though impressive to appreciate creatively, has all the jeopardy of night following day. Money has clearly been spent on this, but not on the script nor the plot. It's fine, but nothing more...