Direction by Christian Rivers
Screenplay by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson
Based on Young Adult book by Philip Reeve
“O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
Th’immortal Jove’s dread clamors counterfeit, farewell!”
– Othello (Act 3, Scene 3, Line 352)
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They should have released this one under its working title:Â Squeeky Wheels.
(That was the real working title, I didn’t make it up.)
According to Mortal Engines’ own mythology, it took a Sixty Minute War to end all of humanity. According to my internal depression, it took a smidge over two hours to end my love affair with Peter Jackson permanently. It’s been a long time coming. I’ve sat through King Kong (a love letter from a stalker) and The Lovely Bones (which was not lovely, no bones about it). Hobbit was okay, though I’m probably feeling the leftover warmth from The Lord of the Rings.
And make no mistake, Jackson didn’t direct this. No, he hadn’t this project off to his storyboard artist. Yes, a storyboard artist. And why not, the Key Grip was busy.
Look, you can take every city on Earth, convert them into transformers, and have them battle it out Suitmation-style and it still wouldn’t have moved me to care about this post-apocalyptic steampunk future where London has been dug up, placed on caterpillar tracks, and drives around gobbling up other cities gone mobile. The biggies gobble up the smallies, playing chicken with one another until one bolts and the other uses harpoons to reel them in.
Now go back and re-read that paragraph and imagine how awesome this should have been.
What a world this is! Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) wants to kill Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving). Thaddeus’ aristocratic daughter (Leila George) is a breath away from community activist anyway so it’s a wonder she hasn’t noticed her dad is a psychopathic totalitarian. Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan, who starred in Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, if that tells you anything), another snob, might love her but will probably love Hester instead. Hey, we need to have star-crossed love somehow so why not pair a high-born twink with a sewer otter.
Did I mention Hester has a giant scar across her face (in the novel she’s missing half her face and an eyeball) and was raised by a sentient robot (Stephen Lang) scavenger? Said robot really wants Hester to remove her soul and place it into a kid robot so they can play forever. Hester even agrees to this but when the chance to get revenge on Valentine arrives she must leave. Of course, this means the robot needs to kill her.
So this is the Traction Era of Humanity. We drive around our giant cities, a thinly-veiled critique of Capitalism, while the noble Chinese live behind their wall, decidedly immobile, awaiting the day we try to attack them before realizing their way of life is better? For a split second I thought the virtues of a great big border wall were going to be talked about. Nope. Instead it’s the philosophical monk and the preening caucasian.
“Those are my people,” Thomas shrieks about the clearly villainous imperialist Londoners.
“If there were any other way I would take it. We value people more than anything,” replies Secretary of the Communist Party of China.
Sure you do. Life is precious.
Is this the first sci-fi Communist propaganda film? Probably not. But it might be the first Young Adult one. Good thing the kids won’t show is all I have to say.
Oh, silly me, let’s not forget the androgynous (and most interesting of the cast) Anna Fang (Korean Pop-Idol Jihae Kim), a buzz-cut anti-traction leaguer who lives in Airhaven. Airhaven is a gestalt of many air balloons that last about as long as the director has the patience not to pop them (read: not long).
*Kablooey, pew-pew!! Pop-pop-blam!*
So narrow is the thought process of these people that when Shrike (the robot creature after Hester) destroys their headquarters — likely slaughtering hundreds in the process, by the by — Anna is basically all shrugs. “No worries, we got Hugo Weaving to take down!” (She actually refers to him as Hugo Weaving.)
Save me from this roller coaster of crap. There’s a moment where a Londoner who operates what equates to a museum shows the remains of America’s gods; the Minions of Despicable Me (in the book it’s Mickey and Pluto from Disney, a far better option). I guess screenwriters Jackson, Boyens, and Walsh feel that the people who gave them so much love with their Tolkien movies are just dupes who like to mumble to ourselves in minionese.
Next time you go to make a movie like this, respect the banana.
Verdict:Â Great Wall of Blech
Released 14 December, 2018
Rated PG-13
Short Film Culture: The Crimson Permanent Assurance (Terry Gilliam, 1983). This BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) nominated short film premiered before Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (Terry’s Jones & Gilliam, 1983). Not content with being the opener, the Crimson Permanent Assurance even invades the Feature Presentation at the mid-way point. All this before sailing right off the Earth they didn’t know was flat.
What a strange story this is. A swashbuckling adventure about a group of aging accountants who mutiny on their firm, turning their work building into a pirate ship to pillage other buildings. They use scaffolding tarpaulins as sails, various and sundry (cabinets, pocket watches) as projectile weaponry. It’s the height of silly but also creativity.
As a young viewer I marveled at The Crimson Permanent Assurance more than even the main film. That included, even, the nudity and vulgarity of Monty Python. Capturing an audience like me and not having violence, nudity, or swearing? I mean, wow!
You can see the seeds that would mark a Terry Gilliam picture, in all of its 17 minute length.
Did You Know: Mortal Engines Quartet. I’d put a hefty amount of money on this being the last of the Mortal Engines movie series but did you know that there are four books in total? Mortal Engines was published in 2001, Predator’s Gold in 2003, Infernal Devices in 2005, and A Darling Plain in 2006. That last one seems a real snoozer but imaging a Predator hunting for gold and Robert Langdon searching the bowels of an abandoned Vatican Traction Tank does whet my appetite.
Or maybe I’m mixing franchises. Who can tell in this day and age?
Philip Reeve also wrote a prequel series known as the Fever Crumb Trilogy. They include (you guessed it) Fever Crumb (2009), A Web of Air (2010), and Scrivener’s Moon (2011). All in all, these silly titled books are about a woman, the titular Crumb, and her experiences with the birth of the traction series. Reeve has threatened promised another installment but I’d say keep me out of this one.
