MORTAL ENGINES (O-RVZ MOVIE REVIEW)

Mortal Engines is a steampunk post-apocalyptic epic adventure film directed by Christian Rivers and is based from a novel of the same name written by Philip Reeve. This epic film is produced by Peter Jackson, whose famously known for his directorial works of other epic films such as King Kong, Lord of the Ring franchise and the Hobbit Franchise and the story sets in a post-apocalyptic world where big cities are mounted on wheels preying into smaller cities to gather their resources for their own. The movie stars Hera Hilmar as Hester Shaw who sets out a revenge mission hunting Hugo Weaving’s character Thaddeus Valentine for killing her mother and who is also one of the leader of the big city London. The movie also stars Robert Sheehan as Tom Natsworthy, one of the residents of London who aid and traveled together with Hester Shaw. The movie is commendable for its great visual effects and beautiful cinematography. Watching this film, it kinda reminds me of the world of Middle-Earth that is set in the future. The types of machinery ranging from the London big mounted wheels to the airplane was really pleasing to watch. Though the movie really excels in terms of its visuals, for me the movie suffers on its pacing and a very confusing storyline. The movie does indeed have a very interesting lore behind it but I wasn’t really engaged by it. The movie starts slow for me and all the build-up for the story didn’t really make sense and matter to me. I just wasn’t really interested in the whole plot of the film and how they present it. As a two-hour film, it was a breather of me once the film ended. I kinda slept at the huge battle scene at the end of it so that’s how disengaged I am from the film. I did appreciate the two main leading actors from the film. Hera and Robert did have some chemistry on screen and it was one of the things that I liked from the film. Hugo Weaving, as much of a respected actor he is, I think he was really under-utilized. His motivations were never really clear and I just didn’t buy him as the villain of the film. I have never read the original source material but I only intended to review of what I have watched from the film without comparing the two different medium. The world was indeed very beautiful because of the amazing visual effects and cinematography but as a whole, it was really just a soulless sci-fi action movie that you just couldn’t wait for it to end.

OVERALL

MORTAL ENGINES was a dull film only to be paired with beautiful visual effects and cinematography. The story didn’t feel engaging and I also didn’t understand the villain’s motivation from the film. There were parts of the film that they didn’t manage to explain more which causes a bit of confusion on the storyline. The characters are likable especially the two main leads but the rest were really forgettable. As much as entertainment goes, I didn’t have quite fun watching the film. I kinda slept at the end of it during the climactic battle scene and once it ended, all my energy went back again.