Mortal Engines (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Christian Rivers
	Actors: Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving (The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix 1-3)
	Country: USA, NZ
	Genre: SF, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 09.01.2018, Cine Hoyt Puerto Montt
Synopsis: In a post-apocalyptic future, the survivors have put their whole cities on wheels to avoid annihilation. What has become of London captures smaller cities, while Thaddeus Valentine (Weaving) is planning something ominous.
Review: The trailer released long before the movie looked very exciting, particularly thanks to good special effects well-rendering massive rolling cities. Those effects also show in the full movie, but unfortunately they are juxtaposed with some other of much more mediocre quality, which really spoils this kind of movie. The concept reminds a lot of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's moving Castle, but in fact the novel from which this movie is adapted pre-dates the Japanese anime (2001 vs. 2004) so I don't know what to think... The advertisement around the movie banks a lot on the name of its producer - not director - Peter Jackson who may have had an relative influence on the project. One may also link him to it via the actor Hugo Weaving who was playing Elrond in The Lord of the Ring's trilogy (and The Hobbit). In the end, apart from several nice Special Effects scenes, I didn't find too much excitement in that movie, in particular the story is quite unsound, and sometimes doesn't make much sense apart from taking us to nice new places (wow, a flying city!..). Worst of all I found was the relationship between Hester and her mentor Shrike (although he is well incarnated by Stephen Avatar Lang), including his motivation and its anti-climactic revelation. And as I said the Effects are not always the best, especially towards the ending, an ending which is not very satisfying either.
Rating: 4 /10