Review: Mortal Engines

Mortal Engines (3D)
Cert: 12A / 128 mins / Dir. Christian Rivers / Trailer

~SM: "Tell us about the film, tell us- just dip us slightly into the world of Mortal Engines."

~PJ: "It's a movie that's based on a book written by Philip Reeve who's… it's actually the first book in a series of four…"

Peter Jackson, interviewed on BBC's Wittertainment show, 01 December 2018.

Peter 'Braindead' Jackson there, not the director of this film but the exec-producer with more media clout than first-time-feature helmsman Christian Rivers. Peter 'Rings' Jackson who, when asked to set the scene for listeners new to the fantastical world of Mortal Engines, needs to point out first and foremost that it's based on a book. On a set of books. Peter 'Hobbit' Jackson who thinks that the first thing you need to know, the first thing before anything else he's going to say, is that this hasn't just been dreamt up in a writers' room.

Because when you say 'well that sounds utterly implausible and quite possibly a little bit shite and I'm not sure if I'm going to gamble the thick-end of £15 finding out', Peter will be like #YeahButBookMate.

Because when you say 'Peter, did they send you to this interview because nobody would give a toss about Mortal Engines if its cast or actual director had come on the show?', Peter will be like #YeahButBookMate.

Because when you say 'But Peter, you love All The Books so much you butchered the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and expanded out The Hobbit novella to include a musical number about doing the bastard washing up, and besides everybody knows that adaptation is probably one of the least reliable ways to make a good movie, and besides it's not as if 'being a book' is any guarantee of quality in itself because as anyone who's ever set foot in a Waterstone's will attest, the literary world is fucking awash with incredibly mediocre fantasy fiction and do you honestly, genuinely think you have anything to add to this genre on a cinematic level when entertainment behemoths like DC are struggling with their own fucking content? Really, Peter?'…

Peter will be like #YeahButHaveYouSeenMeltyCGIsoldiersYouCantCriticiseThatBecauseRespect?

MORTAL

Now, as astute readers may have already gathered, your humble correspondent did not enjoy Mortal Engines. I really don't like saying '[x] is not a good film', because statements like that aren't productive and everything comes down to the viewer's own subjective view. But in the case of this two-hour pileup of a movie, I'll make an exception: Mortal Engines is not a good film. In fact after what I've witnessed, I'd be amazed if the book is really any good either, because if it uses the same story, characters and excruciating dialogue as its cinematic cousin, all it'll be workable for is as a doorstop, paperweight or hamster bedding.

The plot (if you still need a recap) involves a post-apocalyptic world in which cities roam the land (mainland Europe, it appears) on wheels with furnaces in their bellies, devouring smaller mobile towns and villages they come across. Resources are scarce and hope comes in the form of mob-led survivalist greed. London (apparently now the area of a village albeit with St Paul's cathedral at the top) is commanded and course-directed by Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving), a thinly veiled despot clinging onto power by any means available to him. When historical administrator Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) finds himself unwittingly exiled from the city, he crosses paths with Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) and her cybernetic mentor/stalker, a young woman who's desperate to desperate to get into London for very different reasons.

Something something, 'look at the graphics!'; something something, 'wow The Man is bad!'; something something, 'hang on isn't this just Star Wars?'. Still, it was released bang in the middle of pantomime-season, so somebody got that right at least...

HAMMMERED

Yes, this is effectively V for Vendetta by way of Terminator: Genisys by way of The Zero Theorem by way of The Great Heep. And it's every bit as narratively incoherent as that sounds.

You'd be forgiven for expecting a film with this much exposition to make more sense, and the script is even more mechanical than anything the effects teams have to offer (the superb visuals can't make up for the rest of this gibberish). Any time not spent explaining the backstory is used to throw out plot-boomerangs for the third act. Mortal Engines is an over-earnest, overproduced neo-steampunk melodrama, probably fine for audiences young enough to have seen absolutely no fantasy cinema, ever.

Don't worry, there are light-hearted quips in it as well. "Hey careful, you nearly knocked over that priceless historical cultural artefact!" exclaims a character as someone brushes roughly against a table containing a battered, three-foot high reproduction of two Minions. That, and almost winking at the camera when referencing the obscure antiquity of USB plugs, are the level of scripting we're at.

PALATIC

Still, it looks like cinematographer Simon Raby is a fan of the Galaxy Far, Far Away, so you can spend the time between plot-bursts playing "spot the Star Wars shot". And I don't just mean the many Original Trilogy setups. There are nods to scenes from The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Rogue One and even the coaxium implosion from Solo, here. But it's the third act which really has a boner for the Death Star battles (the first, the second and Starkiller Base). And I'm not ashamed to admit that I laughed out loud during the "I am your father" scene. It'd be impressive if the whole thing wasn't so transparently needy.

I suspect that at one point, this was a biting satire on British colonialism, rampantly stripping away anything in its path with righteous flag-waving indignation. It's faintly ironic that since the final movie is neither as insightful, impressive nor important as it thinks it should be, that's still arguably the case.

MUNTED

Mortal Engines is a bad film. Please prove me wrong. The only saving grace may be how ultimately forgettable it is. I'm sure that's what younger members of the cast are pinning their futures on, at any rate.

Although on that subject, I love that Hugo Weaving had declined reprising his role as the Red Skull in Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War because he thought he'd "done [his] dash with that sort of film".

Well, quite.

Necking three bags of Haribo, two litres of Sunny Delight then reading the novel by turning over two pages at once.



Hahahahaha.



Sure, why not see the same mess only smaller?



This is Christian Rivers' first feature film.
At least he has that as an excuse.



That's quite likely.



There isn't.



Level 1: Senator Malé-Dee is in this.



The only reason that's not a 1 is because the film looks good.
Which is of absolutely no consolation.




DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Geostorm

Geostorm
Cert: 12A / 109 mins / Dir. Dean Devlin / Trailer



Before we get started, I saw the new trailer for The Last Jedi today, on the biggest screen in my local. So the afternoon wasn't entirely wasted. Right, then. It's a sad fact of 2017 that Gerard Butler's name on a poster usually points to the production being toward the lower-end of the Tomatometer, but that's where we are. A disaster-flick from the co-writer of two Independence Day movies and 1998's Godzilla was never going to hold any great thematic enigmata, yet this new presentation still manages to disappoint, irritate and bore. That said, it would be unfair to call Geostorm indescribably bad. Not least because I'm about to describe how bad it is...

The plot: The year is 2019 (or thereabouts?), and the Earth's network of weather-stabilising satellites is malfunctioning, causing localised Extreme Weather™, which is killing people. Since Gerard Butler is the one who designed the whole system (no really), he has to go into space to punch things until they all start working again. Meanwhile, his brother Jim Sturgess leads the mission on Earth to uncover the conspiracy behind why it's all happening. Obviously this includes President Andy Garcia Of The USA, because movies. Also, Gerard may be a reluctant-genius, borderline alcoholic insubordinate, but he's got a daughter from a previous marriage because it's important that we know he's straight. That's how I read it, anyway.

Science fact! During inclement weather, buildings and vehicles will explode fierily for no reason…

Our tale begins by having a child deliver a condescending monologue on climate-change and apolitical international cooperation*¹. That's how it begins. This narration isn't returned to until the film's final moments when at least the majority of the audience can use their empty popcorn receptacles as sick-bags. The driving force behind the narrative is that humanity (well, Gerard Butler) has constructed a planetary shield of satellites, which end up having the opposite of their intended effect. Which, if you recall, is basically the setup of Highlander II. Imagine how piss-poor your screenplay must be when it essentially rips off The Quickening. Perhaps I'm wrong; perhaps Dean Devlin has directed and co-written an unofficial prequel to one of the worst movies of all time. That would certainly fit.

The film itself quickly sketches in Butler as the put-upon everyman and Sturgess as his put-upon brother, then escalates from one contrived disaster set-piece to the next, like a story written by an 8yr old who doesn't realise this will all need wrapping up at some point. Every other line of dialogue is exposition. Either descriptive of what's happened in the past, descriptive of character motivations or descriptive of the things which are happening in the same room at that actual moment. It's as if Warner Bros have decided to save money by merging the script with the hearing-impaired Audio Description track. All that's missing from this packed barrel of bar-raising Wowshit is an appearance from Morgan Freeman as a respected academic whose role in the film is to scratch his head and not have a clue what's going on for the duration.

Dialogue highlight! I particularly enjoyed the moment when Gerard Butler has to tell his brother of the unspoken code between brothers by speaking it to his brother. #writing

As with all of these things, the point-of-jeopardy isn't the death of the central characters, but the potential extinction of all humanity itself. Although since that would necessarily include the death of the central characters, it often feels like a tempting trade-off.

On the plus-side, the effects work is pretty solid in here, as is Butler's non-region-specific US accent, amazingly. I assume he's been taking extra tuition. Or maybe he's just nowhere near the worst thing in this film. I could write a lot, lot more about Geostorm's flaws, but quite frankly it isn't worth the effort (not mine to write, nor yours to read). Every single scene in this cries out for lengthy and merciless deconstruction, and I imagine that the inevitable CinemaSins takedown will be at least as long as the movie itself.

Verdict! Every bit as lazy, reductive and pointless as the trailer suggests and then some, this is a moral, artistic, categorical waste of $120m. If Dean Devlin is really so concerned about the environment, he can do his bit by ensuring that after its theatrical run, no more copies of Geostorm are produced in any format whatsoever…

This is like someone put Lockout, San Andreas and Armageddon into a blender they found in a skip, and smeared stale piss round the rim of your glass. While you were watching.



I saw this in a cinema where an elderly couple to my immediate right kept sporadically returning to their full-volume conversation, throughout.
It was not the most annoying thing which happened in that room.



I genuinely have no idea what this sets out to achieve.



The only individual to escape this debacle with any shred of dignity is Alexandra Maria Lara, who seems to have been acting for a much better film. She's going to be fucking livid when she watches this back.



You know what? I will, a bit.



Not that I heard.



Level 2: Our Hero Gerald appeared in 2008's RocknRolla of course, alongside Geoff '2nd Lt. Frobb' Bell.

Incidentally, there is also a scripted reference to Rocknrolla in Geostorm, which is delivered with all the consummate artistry of a toddler at a drum-kit.





*¹ And bear in mind, I'm already on-side for this. As a Guardian-reading, science-loving, realist, I know that the first step in actually tackling demonstrable climate change is by affecting people's attitudes. And even I found this to be a load of manipulative, sanctimonious old shit, half-heartedly smeared across a two-hour montage of cities collapsing for no explicable reason. It's the sort of thing that makes me want to sit in my back garden, burning old refrigerators full of polystyrene, just out of spite… ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.