![]() ![]() They fulfill tropes instead, leaving the film teetering at a precarious point between boring and ironic, goofy fun, with a rare few scenes managing to push the needle into actual fun. The emphasis placed on the mechanics of everything going on around the characters means they’re never given any time to develop in a meaningful way. Hester quickly finds herself fighting for the world’s survival as well, as the roaming city of London shores up its resources to stage an attack on the wall and devour the settlements on the other side. Mortal Engines introduces Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar), a citizen of this on-the-road world out to avenge her mother’s death. The human element of the film doesn’t measure up. ![]() The sheer sense of scale that director Christian Rivers is able to invoke is glorious. Giant metal beasts tear through the landscape, and subsequently each other, leaving massive tracks in their wake. The first 20 minutes, which showcase city chases that play like Mad Max: Fury Road on shrooms, are near perfect. Whenever Mortal Engines focuses on the idiosyncrasies of its universe, it’s magnificent. They roam wild, engaging in a system called Municipal Darwinism, in which bigger cities capture and essentially consume smaller cities for resources, and are blocked off from “static settlements” (exactly what it says on the tin) by an insurmountable wall. And though it’s ultimately tripped up by recycled storylines, paper-thin characters and laughably flat dialogue, there are so many eccentric beats along the way that it’s still a thrill ride until the very end.īased on novels by Philip Reeve, the film’s version of a post-apocalyptic future posits the reign of “traction cities,” metropolises mounted on wheels à la Howl’s Moving Castle. The fantasy film, the big-screen brainchild of Lord of the Rings team Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, is unabashedly inventive and bright in a way that’s highly unusual in a post- The Dark Knight landscape. Rowling, hasn’t been able to recapture the magic of the original. Even the Fantastic Beasts series, spearheaded by J.K. Nothing has managed to grab the crowns worn by the Harry Potter and Hunger Games movies, though franchises like Divergent and The Maze Runner have tried. In the age of gritty reboots and sexed-up remakes, we have reached a point of diminishing returns when it comes to fantasy blockbusters, especially those based on YA novels. ![]()
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