Mortal Engines

A big, expensive post-apocalyptic fantasy, a mix of multiple films and a dream project for Peter Jackson, who unfortunately only produced it, and that's a shame because if he had taken over directing it would have been much more interesting. Visually the film is solid and all the VFX attractions on screen look nice, there are more than enough interesting ideas and there is always something going on so there is no danger of boredom, thankfully. But I did mind that it was too slick and bloodless, it would definitely have benefited from a dirtier package and it also needed a better villain and more interesting main characters. Those who like films like this could easily give cinema a try. I didn't regret spending my money, but I didn't take away too much from the experience. 60% (12/11/2018)

Mortal Engines is a grand farce of colossal proportions with an exceedingly large multicultural cast. The tangle of characters and secondary motivations makes it impossible to focus on the main dramatic story line, let alone on the emotional experience, which is sketched out so well in the promising opening. That’s a shame, because the film’s fantastical world and its visual richness knows no bounds, and Junkie XL serves up an epic Ben Hur-esque soundtrack. It’s hard to say if it’s dragged down by the screenplay, the directing or both, but coming from Peter Jackson and the entire LOTR team, such a stumble is quite a surprise. (04/03/2021)

Interesting world, uninteresting movie. London running on tracks through the rest of Europe and devouring smaller towns is quite nice, but unfortunately it is surrounded by an uninteresting story that its director cannot tell attractively. There’s lots of dead-end plot lines, mediocrely shot action and visuals that one moment are breathtaking and a scene later look like something out of a TV series. On top of that, the protagonists are boring, the plot is hackneyed; in fact, I'm quite surprised that this particular banality, which lays out all its trump cards in the opening "city" chase, has anything to do with Peter Jackson. And I'm not happy about it. (12/06/2018)

Steampunk Star Wars? Dream on. It’s a wannabe soft version of Mad Max, a malnourished Hunger Games, and a crappy copycat of the Wachowski sisters with totally incompetent direction, overstuffed visuals, half-dead actors and a lot of horribly bad scripting. I haven't seen a film this dysfunctional in a long time. (12/05/2018)

The opening scenes of the film promised an excellent spectacle, but... Everything I liked about it soon faded away and the only thing left were dull stares, ineffective play on emotions, frequent racing against time and a Star Wars rip-off, which was only missing Admiral Ackbar’s famous line: "It's a trap!" Otherwise, there was an attack on the Death Star and a duel between the father and son (actually, a daughter), complete with gender equality and multi-cultural interconnectedness under Dalai Lama’s supervision. Not to mention all that self-sacrifice. It's a shame that the creators managed to completely bury the idea which had so much potential. (05/04/2019)

A film in which nothing at all works. It’s nice that it’s action-packed from start to finish, but the whole thing is absolute chaos. A boring plot and setting, with way too many storylines none of which reach a satisfactory ending. Most actors do not fit into their roles, and to make things even worse, the dialogues are simply pathetic. Whoever at Universal approved the 100-million budget should get themselves checked up. Totally confusing and an undeniable flop. (02/11/2019)