MORTAL ENGINES : Tuesday 11th December 2018.

I saw 'MORTAL ENGINES' earlier this week, and here the supremely collaborative team of Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillippa Boyens get their creative minds around this latest post-apocalyptic steampunk adventure offering based on the book of the same name by Philip Reeve. The threesome here Co-Produce and between them penned the Screenplay of this American and New Zealand co-production that cost somewhere north of US$100M to bring to the big screen, is Directed in his debut by fellow New Zealander Christian Rivers, saw its Premier in London at the end of November, was released in New Zealand and Australia last week, and the US on 14th December. The film has so far recouped US$23M and has received mixed Reviews.

Set about one thousand years after civilisation was destroyed by a cataclysmic event known affectionately as the 'Sixty Minute War' what remains of humanity have regrouped and created mobile 'predator' cities that devour smaller mobile settlements across what was once Great Britain and continental Europe. 

The film opens up with a thrilling chase sequence as the mega city on wheels that is London (not as we know it albeit still containing some recognisable landmarks) hunts down a smaller mining community called Salzhaken. Eventually after admirably attempting to evade capture, Salzhaken and her people are captured in the giant jaws of London, under the very specific orders of Lord Mayor Magnus Crome (Patrick Malahide).

With the people of Salzhaken now inside London, they are assembled, processed and greeted by Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving) - the Head of the Guild of Historians, a popular Londoner and a man with a plan! Amidst the captured is Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmer) who wears a scarf to mask her face. Hester has spent six months hunting down Valentine. 

Meanwhile, Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) a proud lower class London apprentice historian and collector of 'Old Tech' (toasters, computers, mobile phones as once used by 'the ancients') spies Hester through the crowd advancing menacingly towards Valentine. He sees Hester pull a blade and lunges towards Valentine, stabbing him in the side. Tom intervenes, and thwarts any further attempt by Hester to assassinate Valentine. Evading capture by the authorities, Tom gives chase through a now rapidly dismantling Salzhaken to be salvaged for scrap, anything of value, and fuel. 

Tom's chase of Hester comes to an abrupt halt at a giant rotating waste chute, down which Hester escapes but not before informing Tom that ten years ago Valentine killed her mother, and is responsible for the disfiguring scar on her face. Valentine, arrives to find no sign of Hester, and Tom explains that she escaped, and also what she said to him. Of course he denies the accusation, but then turns and kicks Tom in the chest sending him backwards into the chute to be ejected from the city with the waste. 

Tending to his wounds, Velnetine's daughter Katherine (Leila George) asks why the girl would want to kill him. He denies all knowledge of who she might be, but says that he'll send a scout ship out to search for Tom, as Katherine was clearly quite close to him. Needless to say, he's lying and has absolutely no intention of locating Tom.

Tom and Hester survived the fall from London and come round in the giant caterpillar tracks left by London as it continues its journey. The pair reluctantly team up as they seek to navigate the Great Hunting Ground with scavenger colonies on the look out for easy prey as night falls. Luckily, they narrowly escape on a hiding colony known as Scuttlebutt, but the owners lock the pair up with the intention of selling them as slaves once they reach their destination. While locked up and en route Hester confides in Tom some of her back story, and how Valentine killed her archaeologist mother Pandora Shaw (Caren Pistorius) after she discovered a piece of Old-Tech from a dig in the Dead Continent of America which he steals from her, whilst the young eight-year old Hester (Poppy MacLeod) escaped with an all seeing eye necklace her mother gave her moments before she died. This is why Hester wants revenge for her death.

Meanwhile, Valentine has hatched a plan to rid himself of Hester once and for all. He travels to an off shore floating prison colony which contains a dangerous and deadly cyborg inmate called Shrike (a barely recognisable Stephen Lang) - the last of an undead battalion of soldiers known as 'Stalkers', who were war casualties re-animated with machine parts and devoid of any memory of their past. Valentine's intention is to have Shrike hunt down and kill Hester, because of a broken promise the girl made to the cyborg.

Arriving at the slave market Tom and Hester are rescued by Anna Fang (Jihae) - a pilot and the leader of the Anti-Traction League, a resistance group standing against the mobile cities devouring Earth's resources and carving up the landscape. During the chaos that ensues, Tom and Hester are chased down by a relentless Shrike. Hester explains that Shrike had found and raised her after her mother was killed by Valentine, and Hester promised to allow him to turn her into a Stalker like himself, but she left six months ago upon learning that London was in the Great Hunting Ground. This is the broken promise that fuels Shrike's new found loathing for Hester, and why he wants his revenge for going back on her word . . . . but really, who can blame her?

Back on London, Katherine grows increasingly distant from her father, after learning from the eye witness account by Apprentice Engineer Bevis Pod (Ronan Raftery) that Valentine pushed Tom down the chute, and learns that her fathers energy project, which he has been spearheading for the last fifteen years in the secretly redeveloped St Paul's Cathedral, is a whole lot more than it seems.

Anna takes Hester and Tom on her airship the 'Jenny Haniver' to the sky city of Airhaven, joining up with other members of the Anti-Traction League. Tom, with his knowledge of old tech, figures out that what Pandora discovered is a super weapon called MEDUSA, that can wipe out entire cities almost instantly. This weapon is now in Valentine's hands and he is ready to use it having harnessed the energy source to do so. Shrike, in the meantime catches up with them and Airhaven is destroyed in a resultant fire. Shrike, however, is critically wounded, and coming to terms with the fact that Hester is in love with Tom he makes peace with Hester and frees her of her promise, before his lights go out for the last time.

Hester, Tom, Anna and the surviving Anti-Tractionists then travel to the 'Shield Wall' which protects an alternative civilisation comprising static permanent settlements in Asia. On London which is now rapidly advancing on the Shield Wall too seeking out fertile new territories to take over, Valentine kills Mayor Crome in a coup and drums up support from London's populace by pledging to destroy the Shield Wall using his new energy source. Arriving at the Shield Wall, Anna convinces the leader, Governor Kwan (Kee Chen) to unleash the Anti-Tractionist fleet of heavily armed aircraft to thwart London. But what they didn't count on was the sheer fire power of MEDUSA to destroy the airborne fleet in an instant and burn a gaping hole in the massive defencive structure of the Wall. 

Hester discovers that the all seeing eye pendant given back to her by Shrike at the time of his death, secretly contains a crash drive with a kill switch to disable and disarm MEDUSA permanently. All that the team now need to do is get back on London, infiltrate St. Paul's, get past Valentine and his guards and insert the crash drive before the next attack . . . simple! They head off leading an airborne attack raid on London's heavily fortified defences. 

Hester and Anna successfully land on London and quickly infiltrate St Paul's. Valentine fatally wounds Anna and she falls to her death from a high balcony. But, during this distraction Hester disables MEDUSA with the crash drive crippling the system forever. Still determined to bring down the Shield Wall, Valentine orders to ram the vast mobile city into the Wall. With Katherine's support, Tom steers the Jenny Haniver into the guts of the moving city to destroy London's engine. Valentine attempts to escape but Hester pursues and fights him on the roof of his own airship. Tom rescues Hester and shoots down Valentine's ship, where it is crushed under the weight of London's huge caterpillar tracks as the city grinds to a halt without any power. The surviving Londoners, led by Katherine, make peace with the Anti-Tractionists and are welcomed in by Governor Kwan. Tom and Hester embrace now that their work is done and fly off into the sunset in the Jenny Haniver to experience what the world has to offer.

'Mortal Engines' is a visual feast that delivers on spectacle and eye catching CGI, has some solid performances most notably from Robert Sheehan and Stephen Lang, and the constructed post-apocalyptic dystopian steampunk world that has been created here seems authentic and believable enough. But the story here lacks any real development, it is derivative predictable cookie cutter stuff that we have seen many times over in other franchises that this film seems to draw inspiration from - 'Star Wars', 'Terminator', 'Mad Max' etc. Young teenagers might enjoy this film more so than your self respecting adult might, and it is certainly worth seeing on the big screen for the action spectacle and the towering visuals of London on the move, but don't expect anything new or particularly genre groundbreaking here.

'Mortal Engines' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, out of a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-