Mortal Engines - Krieg der Städte

I was quite satisfied with this movie. I do wish I had seen it with my 12 year old son because I'm fairly sure he'd have enjoyed it too. Why? Because the whole story, plotline, characterization, basic concepts, love interest, action, bad guy - the whole shebang - is so clearly directed at "young adults" that anyone of my ancient age trying to judge it on the basis of those elements is going to be asking too much of it. But kids, and anyone who likes dystopian science fantasy action films will do too. And there's a good amount of humor in it too.

This was a hugely enjoyable piece of nonsense. I mean, the whole city of London on treadmills, eating up little German villages? With a hunt for a massive weapon of mass destruction? And imitation Twinkie bars that have lasted a thousand years?

Non-stop action, check. Tolerable dialogue, check. No uncomfortable love scenes that will make teens and preteens embarrassed, check. Obviously bad, bad guy, check. Great CGI, check. Did I mention the pretty much non-stop action?

The characters are pretty two dimensional, but sympathetic enough. The concept is fun to watch - steampunk does Star Wars. As dystopian visions of the world it goes pretty well, and I don't mind seeing my home town as the collective bad guys. I mean, come on, when isn't the bad guy from Britain?

It's not Blade Runner, but it's not Valerian either. I'll watch it again, but next time with my son.

First things first, I was lucky enough to be able to go to the pre-premier in Amsterdam and watched the movie in IMAX and I highly recomand watching it in this format.

Basicly what you are watching is a movie that almost seems to aim to be the next terrible tween trilogy. But... the story is not half bad. Filled with plotholes, obnoxious characters and refusing to explain just WHY THEY HAVE TO DRIVE THEIR CITIES!? but overall enjoyable.

The true attrection however is the scenery and boy is it worth it. The cities look amazing, the planes, buildings and everything in the film is dressed to impress. It made me want to crawl through the screen and just marvel at the beauty of it all.

So yeah! The movie is kinda like watching an anime like Howls moving castle without subtitles. I have no idee what they are trying to say but it sure looks nice.

I enjoyed this movie mostly for the novel concept. Something really upsetting has happened to the Earth, there is some mention of a 60-minute war, perhaps nuclear. Now, at least 1000 years into the future, or as one character says, 1700 years after the big destruction, cities large and small are on very, very large traction devices, they travel the landscape and gobble up smaller cities for the food and supplies. The featured city is London with its many levels, the lowest for grunt work and the highest for the elite.

So the hook here isn't unlike many other fantasy movies, there is always one powerful man who wants to be all-powerful. And there are one or two ordinary people who need to stop him. Here it is a female and a male, 30-ish young adults.

The movie is loaded with action, especially the last third or so. It is entertaining as a futuristic action flick, I suppose one could draw parables about the human condition and caring for each other. I watched it on BluRay from my public library, my wife skipped.

The disc has a number of very interesting extras showing how they built the sets and made certain parts of the movie.

Like many reviews said, you can easily spot other films' plots in this one. Predictable, basic and 0 empathy for characters. Save yourself some money and watch it at home when available.

So way in the future, people live in big mechanical machines on wheels. And one of the bigger cities: London, has got some rather unsavory plans.

Mortal Engines looks pretty good. The house-machines look awesome, especially the big ones. We are treated to some fine shots. Grandiose stuff. That's cool. The action is alright, nothing too special, but at times it's quite exciting. There is one fight scene though and I gotta say: someone did NOT get the memo that we don't use a million cuts any more. But there isn't that much fighting anyway, so it's not a big problem. The action that's on a bigger scale is much better. The effects look good, except from some greenscreen stuff that will not age well. (remember that one scene in King Kong? Jeeesh)

This movie really is a mixed bag. On one side it's got some creative, original ideas, on the other some overused clishees. For every creative element, there's a cringy line or two.

The characters are okay, can't say I liked anyone to a very big extent..Although Hugo Weaving does have some charisma. What's with that Tom guy? Sorry, but I just didn't like his face. Reminded me of a ventriloquist dummy, or something. Dunno.

Mortal Engines does have a cool atmosphere about it that I liked. But it is a little long, and there is especially one plot element that fell totally flat, although it was supposed to be very moving. It wasn't.

All in all a decent movie, sure to entertain at least some people.