Universal Pictures | Release Date: December 14, 2018
6.0
USER SCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 287 Ratings
USER RATING DISTRIBUTION
Positive:
140
Mixed:
96
Negative:
51
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand
Review this movie
VOTE NOW
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Check box if your review contains spoilers 0 characters (5000 max)
3
The3AcademySinsNov 13, 2019
I really disliked Mortal Engines. I thought the story, production, and even a lot of the acting performances to be bland, cliche, or derivative. The lengthy and numerous flashback and exposition scenes did nothing but drag the movie down. TheI really disliked Mortal Engines. I thought the story, production, and even a lot of the acting performances to be bland, cliche, or derivative. The lengthy and numerous flashback and exposition scenes did nothing but drag the movie down. The film itself feels very rushed and loud. I didn't find anything of substance here. Expand
2 of 4 users found this helpful22
All this user's reviews
0
BeeradMar 7, 2020
It had potential. But imagine if all three lotr were packed into one 2 hour film. You wouldn’t care about the characters. You wouldn’t care about the ring. You wouldn’t care about middle earth. Nothing would really matter cuz you’re justIt had potential. But imagine if all three lotr were packed into one 2 hour film. You wouldn’t care about the characters. You wouldn’t care about the ring. You wouldn’t care about middle earth. Nothing would really matter cuz you’re just getting cliff notes. That’s how Mortal engines feels. Expand
1 of 2 users found this helpful11
All this user's reviews
2
NightReviewsDec 26, 2018
The latest contrivance from Peter Jackson, Mortal Engines is a post-apocalyptic action thriller on wheels. The film was penned and produced by Jackson with newcomer Christian Rivers making his feature film directorial debut under Jackson’sThe latest contrivance from Peter Jackson, Mortal Engines is a post-apocalyptic action thriller on wheels. The film was penned and produced by Jackson with newcomer Christian Rivers making his feature film directorial debut under Jackson’s wing. The concept of Mortal Engines is set thousands of years ahead of our time. After what was known of the “Sixty Minute War”, the Earth’s crust has shattered resulting in a large loss of the earth’s surface area and natural resources. The loss of resources is the main motivating factor behind entire cities transforming their societies into moving war machines. Their only goal; strategizing towards conquering one another for resources. These concepts do not stray far from our own political climate in its current state. The amped up and glamorized special effects make these concepts of moving beasts of cities a fantastic steam-punk fuelled spectacle that gets your gears going. The story of Mortal Engines centres around a young apprenticing historian Tom Natsworthy played by Robert Sheehan. The young aspiring aviator unwillingly becomes involved in the attempted murder of the main monopolizing figure of London and Head of Guild of Historians, Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving). The would-be assassin, Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar), is a masked and mysterious femme fatale figure with some of the new world’s darkest and deepest secrets. After being mostly unsuccessful with her assassination attempt, no thanks to Tom, Hester and Tom find themselves exiled off of London and into the Great Hunting Ground. Left to face the bleak landscape of the new destructed world alone, a world that director Rivers and the set designer Rosie Guthrie decorate with numerous memorable cinematic set pieces, including a southern bayou style encampment vehicle that rolls and crawls through the landscape with clay formations on its back resembling armour similar to something you would see on an ancient dinosaur or armadillo.

After being captured and sold as slaves, Hester and Tom are lucky enough to be saved by top world assassin Anna Fang. Korean pop star and actress Jihae plays Fang, pilot and leader of the anti-establishment force known as the “anti-tractionists” who oppose the mobilization of cities and subsequent warfare that comes with the capitalist nature of it all. Opposing the idea of what the predator cities adopt as “Municipal Darwinism”, Fang steals Hester and Tom as well as the slave market scene from the movie commanding attention. Donning a red leather trench coat tat resembles something out of a colourful parallel world Matrix, Fang saves our main protagonists without a hair falling out-of-place from her Presley style pompadour. this among many others scenes in the film are hard to ignore for its blatent yet often times crazy imitation type scenes. Typically, while films with this type of budget and nature, tend to pay great tribute and homage to some of the films it get inspiration film, Mortal Engine tends to spill a little too much grease on its mirroring scenes.

In addition to this array of fresh new faces of actors, the supporting cast also includes Leila George D’Onofrio, playing Katherine Valentine, Thaddeus Valentine’s daughter and at least in portions of the film seeming love interest to Tom. Stephen Lang plays the role of Shrike, a Metal Gear Solid styled undead soldier from a battalion called The Stalkers. While Shrike is made mostly of metal and being undead, Shrike and Hester provide the film with the most emotional parts of the film and perhaps the film’s best subplot, Lang and Hilmar give the majority of the film its beating heart, no matter ow cold the subject material really is.

While Mortal Engines will be a hard sell in a jam-packed holiday schedule of films, this dystopian future feature film does some provide audiences with amusing portrayals of the future. Both Rivers and Jackson create a world that is both terrifying to imagine, yet fascinating and hard to look away from. Although the film tries a little too hard on being a Mad Max imitation the film is peppered with popular culture references touching on everything from minions, to Apple products (specifically iPhones) and toasters; displayed and spoken about as if they were ancient relics that providing us humans with some essential and crucial nourishment. One of my favourite and probably the most humorous scenes in the film was when we see Esther pull out a Twinkie to eat. Tom makes a remark at how old the Twinkie is and in a cheeky jab towards the food industry, she diffuses his worries by claiming food from the past even if it is a thousand years old in their case of story and time, “never goes bad”.
Expand
4 of 9 users found this helpful45
All this user's reviews
1
XerokaDec 14, 2018
I can't recommend anyone see this movie. Even ignoring the source material, it is simply bad as a movie. I had high hopes seeing Peter Jackson attached to the movie, but it seems it did not help it outside the general visuals, which is reallyI can't recommend anyone see this movie. Even ignoring the source material, it is simply bad as a movie. I had high hopes seeing Peter Jackson attached to the movie, but it seems it did not help it outside the general visuals, which is really the only positive thing I can attribute to this movie. The general plot gave the impression they were just trying to rush me along from one pretty action scene to the next, while failing to actually make me care about, or be invested in, the characters, their motivations, or the world the story takes place in.

After going back and reviewing the plot of the book, I found that many of the central themes and events that made it interesting were also glossed over and prettied up in the movie. They managed to take a very interesting character in Shaw and reduce her to a basic pretty girl with generic motivations and personality. With the personalities of the main characters stripped away, the love story they attempt to shoe-in comes across as forced as I am left wondering why these people who just met look like they are already in love.
Expand
6 of 15 users found this helpful69
All this user's reviews
3
ViolettNov 3, 2019
This is probably the very first movie I decided to stop and not to watch almost at the end. The beginning was fine, the idea of ther movie itself was quite fine too, but the end is just atrocious. There was just so many crucial flaws makingThis is probably the very first movie I decided to stop and not to watch almost at the end. The beginning was fine, the idea of ther movie itself was quite fine too, but the end is just atrocious. There was just so many crucial flaws making the movie totally unbelivable. The usual mistake of action movies - where army fails few heroes prevail, but here it was just completely unbelivable. Love strories and fatherdaughter stories are awful and unbelivable too. The only good are city views - thats why I didnt put zero. Id like to recommend this movie, but if I do Id also will have to reccomend to stop the video until the "happy end". Expand
1 of 3 users found this helpful12
All this user's reviews
3
syundMar 24, 2019
awful movie,there were so many holes in the story and o course was too predictable
1 of 3 users found this helpful12
All this user's reviews
2
DominArsenOct 27, 2019
An idea that creates an interesting universe, but lacks something that could make us dream.

Une idée qui crée un univers intéressant, mais qui manque de quelque chose qui pourrait nous faire rêver.
1 of 4 users found this helpful13
All this user's reviews
0
TriPoloskiFeb 15, 2020
This film is a disgrace and I cannot bear to watch it,
In fact I walked out of the cinema early because I needed to take a break for the crap this film pulls. They ripped of terminator for the villain, and when the villain tries to kill them
This film is a disgrace and I cannot bear to watch it,
In fact I walked out of the cinema early because I needed to take a break for the crap this film pulls. They ripped of terminator for the villain, and when the villain tries to kill them horribly they immediately feel bad and want them to not die.

Additionally, it just yada yadas through %9000 of everything, like the auction when "hey look a blimp n stuff yeayaeyaeyaey"!¬
Expand
1 of 4 users found this helpful13
All this user's reviews
3
tremaultJun 6, 2020
Started off really well, with some incredibly interesting concepts and a rich back story, and slowly descended into utter anarchy with no discernable logic and events and action, and dialogue that make literally zero sense. There are momentsStarted off really well, with some incredibly interesting concepts and a rich back story, and slowly descended into utter anarchy with no discernable logic and events and action, and dialogue that make literally zero sense. There are moments where I felt like I was missing a massive amount of hidden story, there were characters who look at each other or say a line and I feel like there is supposed to be some relationship between them and I'm supposed to know about it. characters make decisions for seemingly no sensible reason, like for example dropping the young girl off in the garden and then flying straight to the weapon that the young girl needed to get to..??? . this asian dissident girl seems to be a big deal and has some heroic death and I have no idea why or who she really is. I really got the sense this must be adapted from some Manga, or a TV series or a really long novel, but the thing is... if you're going to adapt from a larger source material you really need to edit the story so it actually makes sense in a 2 hour film. They did not do a good job with this as it is just a confused mess of garbage. If you can't include a character's backstory in the film, they should not be in the film making a 'meaningful look' before they crash their ship into the big city on wheels. I don't know who that is, and it just makes me feel like I'm not welcome at your party. Awful film that just made me angry. Expand
0 of 1 users found this helpful01
All this user's reviews
3
AxeTDec 20, 2018
Some epic unusual visuals (yet no shortage of such in plentiful stream of sci-fi fantasy flicks) entrenched in a mind numbing formulaic bore so typical of the genre. * Notable viewing only for the Dolby HDR Cinema large format auditoriumSome epic unusual visuals (yet no shortage of such in plentiful stream of sci-fi fantasy flicks) entrenched in a mind numbing formulaic bore so typical of the genre. * Notable viewing only for the Dolby HDR Cinema large format auditorium (competition for IMAX) with sound so bold the seats (the most comfortable of recliner leather chairs) literally shake. Expand
0 of 4 users found this helpful04
All this user's reviews
3
cyprongeFeb 28, 2021
This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Cliché.... film pour adolescents. Dès visuel exceptionnel maïs une scénario de merdé. Expand
0 of 1 users found this helpful01
All this user's reviews
1
RudygerFeb 26, 2019
I thought The Predator was the worst movie of 2018. Well, it still is. But Mortal Engines is really really close. What a TERRIBLE movie. Everything is awful in it.

Horrible overuse of green screen and bad CGI Atrocious acting Cringely
I thought The Predator was the worst movie of 2018. Well, it still is. But Mortal Engines is really really close. What a TERRIBLE movie. Everything is awful in it.


Horrible overuse of green screen and bad CGI
Atrocious acting
Cringely forced romance. I thought Hollywood stopped this kind of BS. Characters who share ZERO alchemy, fall in love within hours. Yeah, sure...
Bad dialogue
Boring plot. It's just an excuse to do steampunk. Full of useless name dropping
Wokeness (yeah, we get it. White colonialists BAD. Minorities GOOD)


I can't believe how high the ratings are. It took me 4 tries to finish this movie. I fell asleep 3 times before. This movie is like a Syfy B-movie, but with a 100 M$ budget
Expand
0 of 3 users found this helpful03
All this user's reviews
3
GrimmySep 18, 2019
Good visuals but terrible movie. I rather sit thru a 24h Waterworld marathon then re-watch this
0 of 1 users found this helpful01
All this user's reviews
0
fckyou1Apr 29, 2022
This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Its siht
reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Expand
0 of 2 users found this helpful02
All this user's reviews