Mortal Engines is a 2018 steampunk film directed by Christian Rivers and with a screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson, based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Philip Reeve, and starring Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving, Jihae, Ronan Raftery, Leila George, Patrick Malahide, and Stephen Lang. It's an American–New Zealand co-production.
The film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where entire cities have been mounted on wheels and motorised, and practice municipal Darwinism; its movie universe is different from that of the books.
"Imagine that you live one thousand years in the future is a world that doesn't exist anymore, there is no house, the only house is a big machine that looks like a super big car, and they have different kind of cars and they battle absorbing parts of these cars. They have also interesting airplanes and when they battle in the end, was mortal". The big cathastrophe is that one of the big cars has quantic energy that destroyed the Chinese city like a bomb atomic. For lucky, the girl found the key that turn off the machine.
Jackson purchased the rights to the book in 2009, but the film languished for several years before being officially announced in 2016. Jackson picked Rivers, who won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on Jackson's King Kong, to make his feature-length directorial debut with the project, and also brought on several members of his production teams from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. Filming took place from April to July 2017 in New Zealand.
Mortal Engines had its world premiere on November 27, 2018, in London, was theatrically released in Australia and New Zealand on December 6, 2018, and in the United States on December 14, 2018.
The film received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, with some praising the visual effects and score, but with most criticizing the direction, screenplay and "lack of personality". It went down in history as one of the biggest box office bombs of all time, grossing $83.7 million against a production budget of $100–150 million and losing the studio an estimated $175 million.
CAST
Hera Hilmar as Hester Shaw, a disfigured, mask-wearing fugitive assassin with a personal vendetta against Thaddeus Valentine. She was raised by cyborg Shrike.
Poppy MacLeod as Young Hester Shaw
Robert Sheehan as Tom Natsworthy, a low-class Apprentice Historian of London thrown out of the city and forced to ally himself with Hester and the resistance as an aviator.
Hugo Weaving as Thaddeus Valentine, Deputy Lord Mayor, the obsessed archaeologist and power-hungry Head of the Guild of Historians.
Jihae as Anna Fang, a pilot, warrior, and leader of the Anti-Traction League, a resistance group banding against the moving cities devouring Earth's resources.
Ronan Raftery as Bevis Pod, an Apprentice Engineer whom Katherine befriends.
Leila George as Katherine Valentine, daughter of Thaddeus Valentine and one of London's elite.
Patrick Malahide as Magnus Crome, the Lord Mayor of London.
Stephen Lang as Shrike, a cyborg (the last of an undead battalion of soldiers known as Stalkers, who were war casualties re-animated with machine parts), and Hester's guardian.
Colin Salmon as Chudleigh Pomeroy, Tom's historian boss.
Mark Mitchinson as Vambrace, Valentine's henchman.
Regé-Jean Page as Captain Madzimoyo Khora, a Ruh-Shan member and Anti-Traction League aviator.
Menik Gooneratne as Sathya Kuranath, a Ruh-Shan member and Anti-Traction League aviator.
Frankie Adams as Yasmina Rashid, a Ruh-Shan member and Anti-Traction League aviator.
Leifur Sigurdarson as Nils Lindstrom, a Ruh-Shan member and Anti-Traction League aviator.
Kahn West as Toa Heke, a Ruh-Shan member and Anti-Traction League aviator.
Andrew Lees as Herbert Melliphant, an Apprentice Historian and Tom's rival.
Sophie Cox as Clytie Potts, another key Historian.
Caren Pistorius as Pandora Shaw, Hester's archeologist mother.
Additional cameo actors: Michael Bennett and his wife, Pele, make uncredited cameos as two London residents; Philip Reeve and his son cameo as two Shan Guonese onlookers and Peter Jackson cameoes as Sooty Pete, one of London's guards.
TRAILER
PLOT
Set more than a thousand years in the future following a cataclysmic conflict known as the Sixty Minute War, the remnants of mankind regroup and form mobile cities, called "Traction Cities". Under a philosophy known as "Municipal Darwinism", larger "predator" cities hunt and absorb smaller settlements in the "Great Hunting Ground", which includes Great Britain and Continental Europe. In opposition, settlements of the "Anti-Traction League" have developed an alternative civilization consisting of "static settlements" (traditional, non-mobile cities) in Asia led by Shan Guo (formerly China), protected by the "Shield Wall". Relics of 21st-century technology such as toasters, computers, and smartphones are valued by historians as "Old-Tech."
The city of London captures a small Bavarian mining town called Salzhaken, absorbing its population and resources, under orders of Lord Mayor Magnus Crome. Tom Natsworthy, an apprentice historian, arrives at London's "Gut" to collect Salzhaken's Old-Tech for London's Museum. Hester Shaw, a masked twenty-something woman among the Salzhakens, attempts to assassinate Thaddeus Valentine, Head of the Guild of Historians, but Tom intervenes, pursuing Hester to a chute. Hester escapes, but not before telling him that Valentine murdered her mother and scarred her face. When Tom informs Valentine of this, he pushes Tom down the chute.
Tom and Hester are forced to work together to traverse the Hunting Ground, surviving Southies, Scavs on a night hunt, and finding refuge in a vehicle called Scuttlebug, but the owners lock them in a cell, intending to sell them as slaves. Hester confides that Valentine killed her archaeologist mother Pandora after stealing a piece of Old-Tech she found in a dig in the Dead Continent of the Americas, while young Hester escaped with a necklace her mother gave her. Meanwhile, Valentine frees Shrike, a reanimated cyborg known as a "Stalker", from the offshore walking prison Sharkmoor, to find and kill Hester. At the slave market of Rustwater in the Outlands, Tom and Hester are rescued by Anti-Traction League agent Anna Fang. During the chaos, they are pursued by Shrike, whom Hester reveals she knows. Hester explains that Shrike had found and raised her after escaping Valentine, and Hester promised to let him turn her into a Stalker like himself, but she left after discovering that London had entered the Great Hunting Ground, giving her a chance to kill Valentine. In London, Valentine's good-natured daughter Katherine grows estranged from her father, especially after Apprentice Engineer Bevis Pod informs her that Valentine pushed Tom down the chute, and they learn Valentine's energy project in the re-purposed St Paul's Cathedral is more than it seems.
Hester and Tom travel on Anna's airship, the Jenny Haniver, to the airborne city Airhaven, meeting other Anti-Traction League members. After questioning Hester, Tom realizes Pandora discovered a computer core for MEDUSA, a quantum energy-based superweapon used by the belligerents during the Sixty Minute War to instantly destroy entire cities, albeit shattering the Earth's crust into a thousand pieces that have rearranged the former continents. The Guild of Engineers has stolen the remaining components from Tom's museum workshop and built a MEDUSA under Valentine's orders. Shrike catches up with them, resulting in a fierce skirmish that critically wounds him and destroys Airhaven. Realizing that Hester is in love with Tom, he spares Tom and frees her of her promise before perishing. As Hester, Tom, and Anna travel to the Shield Wall of Batmunkh Gompa with the surviving Anti-Tractionists, Valentine kills Crome in a coup and musters support from Londoners by vowing to destroy the Shield Wall with MEDUSA and lead them to a new Hunting Ground in Asia. Anna convinces Shan Guo's Governor Kwan to launch the Anti-Tractionist airship fleet against London, but MEDUSA destroys the fleet and blasts a hole through the Shield Wall. After coming upon a stone carving of Medusa, Hester discovers that her mother's necklace hides a "crash drive", a kill switch for MEDUSA. Hester, Tom, Anna, and the remaining Anti-Tractionists lead a raid against London, braving the city's anti-aircraft guns.
Hester and Anna infiltrate St Paul's, and though Valentine mortally wounds Anna during a sword duel, Hester destroys MEDUSA with the crash drive. In a last-ditch attempt to destroy the Shield Wall, the insane Valentine has his henchmen kill the city's control crew and put the city on full throttle on a collision course with the Wall with no concern for all involved. With Katherine's help, Tom uses the Jenny Haniver to destroy London's engine. Hester catches and fights Valentine aboard his airship, where he reveals that he is her father. Tom rescues Hester and shoots down Valentine's ship, which is crushed by London's slowing tracks, killing Valentine. With Valentine's defeat, the surviving Londoners, now led by Katherine, make peace with the Anti-Tractionists of Shan Guo. As Governor Kwan welcomes the Londoners, Tom and Hester embrace each other and leave in the Jenny Haniver together to see the world.
Rating: 10 stars
