In a post-apocalyptic world, giant cities on wheels consume all in their
path.
Directed by: Christian Rivers
Starring: Hera Hilmar, Hugo Weaving, Jihae, Robert
Sheehan, Stephen Lang
For some odd reason, Australia has cornered the market in prestige cover
bands, with the likes of The Australian Pink Floyd, Zep Boys and Bjorn Again
making a living from imitating musical legends and playing to packed houses
over the last couple of decades. Perhaps inspired by their neighbours'
(everybody needs good neighbours) success, New Zealand has given us its own
blockbusting tribute act, Mortal Engines.
Frontman director Christian Rivers and his rhythm section of
screenwriters Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and
Fran Walsh (formerly of folk outfit Gandalf and the Hobbits) promise
audiences a note for note recreation of the experience of seeing the
original Star Wars trilogy in cinemas. They play all the hits
- 'I am your father', 'The handsome black man who lives in a city in the
clouds', 'Duelling sabers' and of course, the bombastic closing number
'Plucky pilots take down a massive structure by flying into a chasm and
hitting its weak spot'. If smoking were permitted in the cinema you'd
believe it was 1977 again!
Not since 1982's notorious knockoff, Turkish Star Wars, has a movie so flagrantly ripped off George Lucas's creation. Practically
every plot point in this adaptation of Philip Reeve's YA fantasy
novel is 'borrowed' from the first couple of instalments of Lucas's saga,
with the occasional nods to Waterworld (a joke about drinking
your own urine; the opening Universal logo co-opted to visualise an
apocalyptic event) and the Mad Max series (composer
Junkie XL delivers a soundtrack that might as well be outtakes from
his
Fury Road
sessions).
That's not to say Mortal Engines doesn't have an original
idea in its head, as the central premise and its resulting imagery is like
nothing you've seen before. A few millennia after earth is left in ruins by
the '60 Minute War', the remaining population roam around in giant cities on
wheels. The biggest of the lot is London, a behemoth that consumes any
smaller towns and cities in its path, co-opting whatever resources they
might offer. Determined to put an end to the former UK capital's reign is a
young 'anti-tractionist', Hester Shaw (Hester Hilmar), who
infiltrates the rolling metropolis, planning to kill shifty
historian Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving).
The idea of cities on wheels sounds like something that could only work on
paper, but kudos to the FX and production design team for pulling it off
here. Quite a bit of thought has gone into how such an idea should be
portrayed, and the portable London is a clever bit of steampunk design, the
wheel of the London eye repurposed as a giant elevator to take citizens up
and down levels and the dome of St. Paul's cathedral opening to reveal a
missile system. There's a sense of scale to this film that's absent from
many bigger budgeted productions, and while the script offers nothing
remotely original, the film continually surprises with its visual
inventiveness.
On paper, Mortal Engines reads like a concept that could only
result in a movie that's so bad it's ironically entertaining for that very
reason, but the major flaw of this movie is that it's so self-conscious of
its bonkers premise that it plays its drama far too seriously. It's
refreshingly lacking in the brooding, emo atmosphere of its YA
contemporaries, but it's also devoid of humour, and its cast are forced go
through the motions and deliver stiff performances, spouting functional
dialogue. None of the characters here are anything more than archetypes,
save for - ironically - a 'Terminator meets the Tin Man' robot (voiced by
Stephen Lang) who doesn't have a heart, yet comes off as more human
than anyone else we meet.
Mortal Engines is on Netflix
now.
