Mortal Engines

Synopsis:

In a steampunk world where moveable, traction cities survive by preying on lesser ones, Hester Shaw is determined to take her long-awaited revenge. She wants to kill Thaddeus Valentine, leader and prominent revolutionary of London, for the murder of her mother years ago. On the cusp on enacting her vengeance, though, she is stopped by Tom, a worker at the London Museum. Hester’s attempt opens up Valentine’s sinister intentions to deploy a dangerous technology long-forgotten by time. Hester and Tom both become targets. But what can two outcasts, thrown together by nothing but misfortune and with no allies on their side, do to stop him?

 

From the opening gruff voice-over, it’s clear Mortal Engines is going to be an expansive, immersive steampunk epic. It’s beautiful and creative but, at the end of the day, a movie with a lot of pretty cinematics – and albeit some great diversity – but not a lot of depth.

We’re thrown, by way of the action-packed first scene, straight into the detailed, gritty steampunk world of the movie. The worldbuilding happens around us as London, a traction city – what appears to be a moveable and wheeled entity – attacks a smaller town.

It’s on this town that we first get a glimpse of our main character, Hester, played by Hera Hilmar. Hester stands out with her villainous-looking red kerchief. And her sharp knife and anti-heroine attitude.

We soon meet the male lead of the movie – Tom, cast as Robert Sheehan – in the London Museum, a place full of fanciful curios and remnant of “the ancients”. His introduction serves to also temper the fast-paced worldbuilding, as we are given identifiable relics of our time and a moment to ingest the world.

Full of his characteristic humour and jittery energy – but lacking the darker wit that made him so charismatic on the British TV series Misfits – Sheehan’s character Tom is fascinated by historical objects. He reveals to Katherine Valentine, a key side character, his doubts that past Londoners could read and write as we’re shown a case of cracked, time-worn screen devices. It’s one of the movie’s attempts at humour – including the later jab that Twinkies have no expiration.

The danger of nuclear-type mass weapons, though, is a remnant of our time completely lacking humour and central to the evil plan of the movie’s villain, Thaddeus Valentine. Or simply Valentine, for short.

All three storylines – those of Hester, Tom, and Valentine – quickly collide when Hester makes her assassination attempt on Valentine. Fuelled by revenge for the murder of her mother, Hester is foiled by Tom, who stops her and chases her through the labyrinthine insides of the London city. Instead of letting Hester fall off a railing and out of the city, Tom tries to save her – but he doesn’t get much for his trouble when Valentine shows up and kicks them both off the city.

After this action-fuelled sequence, I admired Hester’s competency and determination, and Tom’s goodness. I was pinning my hopes for the film on two fantastic leads. Alas, they never quite panned out.

There was so much potential with Hilmar and Sheehan’s characters. Hester was tough and capable of handling herself, never losing her anti-heroine veneer, yet also kind. Tom was the perfect balance to her dark character, filling the role of the affable sidekick. But I just never felt that I knew what they really wanted.

Sure, Hester’s goal is revenge. But underneath all that, what does she really want? And it’s later revealed that Tom wants to be an aviator pilot, but we never get to explore the passion that’s clearly been hidden under his historian facade. I wanted so badly to feel something for them, but my heart strings were left sadly un-plucked.

The broader cast of characters, though, was thankfully diverse and interesting. The characters from Shan Guo – the peaceful, stable continent in this traction world – were an exciting group with Anna Fang, played by Jihae Kim, the most developed standout. She is the tough, charming steampunk pilot we all want to save us from being sold by scavanging traffickers.

One question, though: How did this movie manage to make me tear up over a soulless, violent cyborg man? Shrike’s relationship with Hester is one of the interesting points of this film. His character is complex and sympathetic. But his subplot in the movie felt out of place and like it could be removed completely without affecting the overall story.

Sadly, Valentine failed to give me the chills. He is a cardboard cutout villain. Driven by ambition and power, and not at all remorseful for his actions. I’m always looking for villains with shades of grey, but he was all black. I think his relationship with his daughter Katherine should have been leveraged better to give him complexity.

Plot-wise, the movie is well balanced between emotional highs and lows, which is what every epic aspires to. There are several fantasy tropes – wait till the very end for one massive, predictable one – but they serve to keep momentum going.

While the film is meant to be epic, it feels long. Small questions drew me out of the story – what are Valentine’s plans beyond stopping Hester thwarting him, for example, which were not hinted at for too long – but, if you’re willing to let them go, these are quickly lost in the scope of the world. It’s non-stop action and movement. Every frame is stunningly rendered and so it’s easy to be swept away.

Shan Guo, for example, is a beautiful place of peace and prosperity. The wide shots of its vistas are stunning after the dark grittiness of the rest of the world, the scavenging traction cities or towns fighting to survive. And it has an East Asian influence which I appreciated.

The plot did shine in one subtle decision. There is clearly a bond between Hester and Tom, but, thankfully, the movie doesn’t cave to the stereotypical romance. Instead, we are given a beautiful, optimistic ending between Hester and Tom along with the peace between the ex-Londoners and citizens of Shan Guo.

This is a beautifully filmed and flashy epic that shows tarnishes in its characters and plotting. But it is still a worthwhile film for it’s inventive imaginary world, strong female lead, and diverse side characters and setting of Shan Guo. And if none of that sells you, rest assured that, having been produced and co-written by Lord of the Rings’ Peter Jackson, it’s an epic ride of sheer scope and heart-stopping action.

 

Good stuff: Worldbuilding. Beautiful settings and filming. No romance. Diverse cast and setting of Shan Guo. Great ending with everything tied up (in case it’s box office failure preempts a sequel).

Bad stuff: Felt too long. Lost potential for main characters. Tropes used without invention. Lackluster villain.

Rating: ☕☕☕/5