Movie / TVReviews

Mortal Engines

PG-13 | 2h 8min | Dec 5 (EU) / Dec 14 2018 (USA) – SPOILER-FREE!

London as a global threat, devouring everything and everybody in its way – Brexit worst-case scenario?

Nope, it’s literally a mobile city that goes hunting for resources like a predator in the year 3100-something … A sinister but still fascinating vision of a future where Steam-Punk, Mad Max and Lord of the Rings blend together. There are several connections to the latter: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and the director of this movie Christian Rivers have created the script, based on the book by Philip Reeve. Filming location was New Zealand, and “Elrond” Hugo Weaving is one of the main characters (Thaddeus Valentine).

After a short introduction by a narrator about what had happened in the last 1000 years we are going straight into a lot of action… All those fresh faces you have not seen yet, or only briefly elsewhere, stick out, and among them a lot of strong women: Hera Hilmar (Hester Shaw), Leila George (Katherine Valentine) and Jihae (Anna Fang); Robert Sheehan (Tom Natsworthy) is quite appealing as slightly clumsy historian. And there are more impressive characters … will they be able to stop London?

The plot includes several gags and hints to our reality, yet sometimes it’s difficult just to take it in when everything is moving along so quickly, and sometimes it’s not that easy to follow the story. Especially when you don’t know the book. This should not impact the pleasure of watching this movie negatively, though. I recommend just to plunge into this other reality, maybe in 3D, just to enjoy all those tech gimmicks, breathtaking sceneries and hilarious scenes (and also pay attention to costumes)! A great movie adventure that you will surely find entertaining!

  • 8/10
    Bewertung / rating - 8/10
8/10

Klaudia Weber

reckless and merciless dictator, so KNEEL! In other words, editor-in-chief, translator, website and ad admin, "Jane of all trades" - - - addicted to books (everything between Lord Of The Rings & quantum physics) and music, mainly Metal made in Finland. Furthermore, there's painting, drawing, movies, theater... so you can expect some variety on this website too. MA Master of Arts, English and American studies & Media communication = completed two full studies parallel within 5 years; very proud of my achievement - a bit later in life thanks to a scholarship - as a working class girl in a highlyconservative-romancatholic nation...