Mortal Engines (2018)

Sooo...
Been there, seen the movie.
Great visuals, decent characters, a MC which hardly talks, an interesting robot, decent action.
Not enough time to develop the characters to their potential.
What did bothered me it is the premise of "predatory cities", gigantic mechanical moving cities, with a touch of steampunk (ok, a lot of steampunk), running on some non-identified fuel. I mean, we have the classical Armageddon which wipes the actual civilization (there is a reference in the movie to 2018) and one thousands years latter the survivors have the ability to build gigantic cities and roam the continents on their back.? Mind that the earth is not contaminated by the Armageddon to justify such an effort.
It seems to me the movie is made for a degraded IQ spectator.
P.S. It is fun to see how an electric bread toaster is a highly prized museum artifact, but they had jet engines.
 
With 64 critics reviews it is running 33 percent over at Rotten Tomatoes , general opinion is the VFX are fine but not much of a story.
I have not read the novels so I did not know these are characterized as 'young adult'.

Interesting to see the audience ratings.
 
Al Jackson said:
With 64 critics reviews it is running 33 percent over at Rotten Tomatoes , general opinion is the VFX are fine but not much of a story.
I have not read the novels so I did not know these are characterized as 'young adult'.

Interesting to see the audience ratings.
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Not surprised...
 
I've also heard that the story isn't great, but frankly the stories of most big-budget films are pretty predictable, so I'm not sure what to make of that.
 
Toby Frost said:
I've also heard that the story isn't great, but frankly the stories of most big-budget films are pretty predictable, so I'm not sure what to make of that.
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That is the challenge is it not?
Lord of the Rings is big vista but it has a great story.
It can be done, Lawrence of Arabia , even the 2000 film Gladiator (not very historical, but a good yarn).
It can be done but does take a measure of imagination , from what I have heard the source material here needed better fixing than it got.
 
Toby Frost said:
Definitely. Earlier this year I watched The Winter Soldier, the second Captain America film. I thought it was really good until it became about superheroes punching each other. But then, that's kind of the point!
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I may have mentioned this elsewhere but I saw a movie review this year where the critic said he thought all the character stories , in a comic book movie, were so interesting that he wished they had left out all the action!!
 
It's been a long time since I read Mortal Engines and its sequels, so I don't remember my reactions to them as well as I might, but I did read all the books, so I imagine I must have liked them. Perhaps remembering background from the books that was left out of the movie might enrich my enjoyment of the film, always supposing I go to see it, which I am somewhat conflicted about, because it might just as well make me annoyed if I feel they left out important parts (always supposing that I remember those parts myself).

But as for having difficulty suspending my disbelief about the predator cities moving across the landscape on wheels, I do recall that I didn't let it bother me, because I saw quite clearly that the cities were a metaphor for ... well, a whole list of things ... and a warning of how desperate and dangerous humanity might become if we carelessly used up natural resources and didn't find positive ways to adapt but continued greedy and acquisitive. At the same time that I was aware of the metaphor and the warning, I didn't feel preached to, because so far as I recall the characters didn't make speeches about the lessons we should have learned, but just kept busy trying to survive in a hostile world.
 
Ouch! Over at RT Mortal Engines is running 29% with 100 critics reviews.
51% with nearly 1000 audience reviews.
Has a 45 at Metacritic.

Gee I think Peter Jackson calculated wrong on producing this one.
 
@Teresa Edgerton I can assure you there is no room for metaphors in the movie. When London "walks" the landscape is changed.
Then the suspension of disbelief is gone in the human hunt scene at night, when some pirates cities (or at least very big machinery) are burning a lot of fuel to catch humans in the middle of nowhere. If that wasn't enough, after that comes the scene where the slave are sold to an improvised market for 5 coins (forgot the name of the money). It doesn't sound very profitable to me.
 
Most of the reviews are lukewarm at best for this film. I'm thinking I may not rush out to see it at the cinema.
 
Well, I went to see it yesterday, sat in the cinema, turned off my critical analysis programme and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle, the steampunk tech, the battle scenes and the inventiveness.
Worrying about fuel consumption, to my mind, is like worrying about the veracity of radioactive spider bites, or the energy requirements of a Starfleet transporter system...
 
pyan said:
Well, I went to see it yesterday, sat in the cinema, turned off my critical analysis programme and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle, the steampunk tech, the battle scenes and the inventiveness.
Worrying about fuel consumption, to my mind, is like worrying about the veracity of radioactive spider bites, or the energy requirements of a Starfleet transporter system...
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VFX cannot make up for the entertainment value of a good story well put.
The 'It is only a movie' attitude says to me even if I don't like the film I am supposed to, that passes beyond my understanding.
Either one is entertained or one is not.
 
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Sounds as if the script is the issue. Vfx looks good. I'll have to watch to see for sure, but that sounds about on trend with a few big properties in Hollywood right now. A badly written script is nigh impossible to salvage.
 
picklematrix said:
Sounds as if the script is the issue. Vfx looks good. I'll have to watch to see for sure, but that sounds about on trend with a few big properties in Hollywood right now. A badly written script is nigh impossible to salvage.
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Good Scripts tend to be not very high priorities with movie executives.
 
It movie is really crashing at the boxoffice , world wide sales are no making up for the US market.
This film does not have Star Wars or Tolkien niche like thing …
You never know, The Martian was made for 100 million, did 228 million US , but 630 million world wide which is good. Gravity was a 100 million dollar production and made 700 million world wide. I head that Sandra Bullock made 70 million because she took a percentage as a salary.
Those movies had a good story and a good screenplay.
Blade Runner 2049 , which after watching again , a year later, is , I think , the best film of 2017, really got little love in the money department.
 
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