MORTAL ENGINES (2018)

MORTAL ENGINES (2018)

Tagline: Some scars never heal. 

(Action, Adventure, Steampunk Awesomeness) [PG-13]

In this one, the world has basically been ravaged by nuclear war. In order to survive some built cities on wheels, which ravaged the land consuming other smaller cities for power and fuel. Unless you are a crazed lunatic like Thaddeus Valentine (played by Hugo Weaving) who basically just wants power. So essentially, the big baddie here is the city of London on freakin wheels, with lions coming out of it. It’s probably the coolest steampunk dream anyone has ever had. We end up finding out that Hester Shaw (played by Hera Hilmar) is after Thaddeus because of something he did in his past. No, I am not going to give it away. If you read the book you might know, but this isn’t the book, it’s the movie that has the same name as the book.

Anyway – from the moment this thing starts we are thrown into an exceeding well-developed and thought-out steampunk world of flying machines, machines under the ground, and like I said before cities on wheels. In the midst of all this is some actual brilliant storytelling which reminded me a lot of ROGUE ONE. Just enough to make you care, but not puffed up or overloaded in any way. Hester’s backstory is the stuff of legends and is probably residing in the pages of macabre history books gathering dust in old libraries in Europe somewhere. There is enough in this movie to encompass 3 or 4 lesser efforts, but instead, we get a powerhouse not quite like anything we have ever seen. It’s kind of like if the set of the 2^nd HELLBOY and STARDUST had a post-apocalyptic baby.

Overall MORTAL ENGINES is inspired, stunning, and brilliant, but sadly looks like that won’t be recognized at the moment given the box office numbers. Scrap this up to being reduced to an enthralling well-constructed cult classic in 20 years. Actually – overall maybe that’s not half bad. The acting and cinematography is done on a grand scale giving this movie more punch than most of what’s come out this year.

MORTAL ENGINES gets a solid 7 out of 7 and is already on the BLU-RAY must-have list.

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