Mortal Engines
This movie was TRASH! Pure trash!
Mortal Engines was a movie I was iffy about going to see in theaters, I had the desire to view it, but for some reason I couldn’t gather myself to actually go to the movies and pay for it. Fast forward to now and I understand what it was, LOL.
In the movie we follow Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) and Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) in a janky love story that’s thrown into a post apocalyptic world filled with cities that are mobile on these scrap powered machines (traction cities) that are at war with stagnant cities that have built refuge behind giant walls. Tom is thrown off of the traction city London after his first encounter with Hester who tries to kill the figure head of London Thaddeus Valentine, who is like the worst villain in the cinematic world, for killing her mother when she was 8-years old. After being dumped from London without anyone searching for them, the two start on a journey of being kidnapped and hunted; eventually discovering Hester is the only one that can pretty much save humanity from the conspiracy of the very man she wants dead… plot twist, he’s also her dad… LOL. Hester and Tom wind up saving the world and taking down the bad guys, while somehow falling in love in like a week… what is this a Disney movie?
I’m all for a good love story, but please… Hester literally could not stand Tom because he got in the way of her killing Thaddeus, the only thing they had were a few near death experiences where he refused to leave her behind, which I get is romantic, but he’s not even the first “person” or should I say being to look out for her after her mother died. Which leads me into the story of Strike…
Strike, Strike, Strike… Okay, Strike (Stephen Lang) is this man made robot with the mind of a man that he is no longer, but still somehow contains the emotional connection and feelings to things of his past life and doesn’t know where they come from? He found Hester after her mother died while on the run from Thaddeus, and essentially raises her as his own child. In an attempt to make her immortal like he is, Strike builds her a mechanic body to upload her mind and personality to so they can essentially enjoy the rest of life together. She tells him she’ll do it until she catches wind of Thaddeus finally being in a part of the world where she can reach him to get her revenge so she runs from Strike, and he starts hunting her… My dude is a cyborg with green eyes and metal feet that can rip you apart, and he is NOT happy when she breaks her promise to him. Strike is actually an amazing concept as a character, maybe for a completely different movie, but I’m blown with him because he spends about 45 minutes of this 2 hour movie tracking Hester and literally just gives up when they’re face to face because she’s begging him not to kill Tom who he realizes she’s fallen in love with… how?! LOL
Then we have these rebels who Hester is ultimately the savior for, and they represent the static nations behind the wall the Valentine wants to tear down with the same nuclearesque weapon that ended the world to begin with and brought them to this way of life.
Honestly, I don’t think any of the characters were developed properly… Thaddeus’ daughter, Katherine (Leila George), is a waste of a character; she’s trying to be a detective and finds this deadly machine he’s building but she literally plays no purpose to the plot of the movie. Anna Fang (Jihae) was DOPE as a rebel, but we have no backstory on her other than what she gives us verbally about being enslaved at some point in her life. And the list goes on. We don’t even know why these cities are separated by this wall, we just know Thaddeus wants to break it down. They don’t even show us what caused him to go down this path of destruction. Honestly, the fact that he’s Hester’s father doesn’t really add anything to the story line either, LOL.
I loved the concept of these traction cities at war with static cities for whatever reason, but execution was just not the business for me. The movie had too many parts it tried to incorporate and didn’t give enough development in the places it should have. I wouldn’t recommend watching to anybody but go far it if you’d like something to pass some time and you’re bored but nothing else is on.
The movie poster was lit, however! I saw it after watching the movie and it made me feel like “that’s a movie I’d love to see”, but in reality, I’ve already seen it and it was horrible.
Oh well! Check it out or don’t, LOL, your choice!
Movie Release: November 27, 2018
Where I watched: Verizon Fios - DVR (yes, I recorded this crap)