Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Hera Hilmar, Hugo Weaving, Jihae, Robert Sheehan, Stephen Lang, Leila George, Frankie Adams, Caren Pistorius, Andrew Lees, Colin Salmon, Ronan Raftery, Joel Tobeck, Patrick Malahide, Nathaniel Lees, Stephen Ure, Yoson An, Philip Reeve, Menik Gooneratne, Rege-Jean Page, Mark Mitchinson, Mark Hadlow, Sarah Peirse, Leifur Sigurdarson, Sophie Cox.

Occasionally you witness something so grand in its delivery, so epic in its presentation, that you might be forgiven for overlooking the detail, the small nuts and bolts that hold it together, the rust perhaps not showing through the delight held up as a vehicle of what can be achieved with imagination, the sense of what is unfolding before you, has been created before, just presented in a different way; those nuts and bolts suddenly looking a little less secure, making the experience less than robust, more prone to be exhausted by the end.

Mortal Engines has all the scope to be a picture of grandeur, it has the wherewithal to show meaning, of being a film in which to be symbolic and a warning, and yet deep down it plays with the temptation of being over grand, of being a fluid mixture caught between the realms of the Mad Max stories, the origin of The Terminator and the seemingly sincerity held at the core of Waterworld, it is the belief of its anti-almost everything agenda which gives it charm, but it just doesn’t know when to stop, and for that, and all the gleam that you initially first see, which makes the film less than ideal.

That is not to say there is nothing to take from the film, on the contrary, the premise alone is one that is worth remarking on, but even in that it feels too obscure, for those who have not dealt into Philip Reeve’s books, the lack of explanation of what bought about the shocking destruction of society as we understand it might niggle at their minds throughout; it is a talking point, a conversational gesture which holds court and without resolution.

It is to Hugo Weaving as Thaddeus Valentine and Stephen Lang’s presentation of the corpse like-half machine, Strike, which captures the eye, the former being the personification of those driven mad by the sense of power they feel they should rightfully wield, the later as perhaps the most compassionate and human of all the characters within the film. Both actors you would expect nothing less from, however, in a film that becomes too top heavy, their performances seal a higher enjoyment and appreciation that might have been necessarily so.

Even Mortal Engines can become sluggish, under perform, so it is to this film in which the constant showing of symbolism becomes warring, a nice picture, but nice is not always the finest of attributes to be content with.

Ian D. Hall