Mortal Engines Review

Mortal Engines is a fun action thriller with a great premise held back by a mediocre script. This movie is about a post-apocalyptic world where cities are on wheels and eat each other to survive. When two young people meet in London, they go on a quest to stop the evil leader of the city. Hera Hilmar gives a good performance.  Her character does not talk a ton, but she sells the role very well physically and you care for her personal struggle.  Robert Sheehan gives an okay performance. He is never awful, but he never does anything to stand out and has almost no chemistry with Hilmar.  Jihae gives a fun performance in a small supporting role.  Hugo Weaving is easily the best performance in this movie. He is clearly having a ton of fun hamming it up as the villain.  Christian Rivers did a great job directing.  This is a beautiful looking movie and the action scenes are all fantastic. Specifically, a thrilling chase scene in first 20 minutes that had my heart racing. The script is where this movie’s problems lie, the characters have very little development and the script assumes you know way too much without filling you in on basic information.  At 128 minutes the pacing is a mixed bag. The first act flies by and the third act moves quickly as well. However, the second act of this movie really drags. Overall Mortal Engines is a fun action movie, but with a better script could have been something really special. 

7/10