6 / 10. Meals on wheels. Looks amazing with an original concept but lacking in character and story development

Mortal Engines is a beautiful looking, yet disappointing, post-apocalyptic action film directed by Christian Rivers from a screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson. It’s based on the 2001 novel by Philip Reeve, although the film universe is different from that of the book.

The film is set hundreds of years after an apocalyptic event, known as the Sixty Minute War, has decimated the civilisations of the world. Humans now practice municipal Darwinism and live in motorised cities, called "Traction Cities," which move on gigantic wheels across the world.

The larger "predator" cities hunt and absorb smaller settlements in the "Great Hunting Ground" of Great Britain and Continental Europe, and resistance to this way of life is growing in Asia. The film focuses within this on Hester Shaw who is on a vendetta against Thaddeus Valentine, Head of the Guild of Historians, on the City of London.

Mortal Engines looks amazing and reminded me visually of a cross between Final Fantasy 7 and the Bioshock game series. The moving cities and towns look gorgeous and are an original concept. The first 15 minutes look fantastic, but you don’t really see many other towns / cities, which is a shame. I was hoping to see many different ones, however, the floating city structure in Asia did look fabulous.

Hugo Weaving is a great villain as Thaddeus Valentine (the film has some great character names), but the script and acting isn’t so impressive. You don’t feel much empathy for the characters as they lacked development. It loses momentum after first 30 minutes or so, and the story peters out.

I’ve had a soft spot for Robert Sheehan since Misfits, and he was amusing as Tom Natsworthy, but I wasn’t really impressed by Hera Hilmar’s Hester Shaw. Jihae Kim was cool as Anna Fang.

,,It looks like a Peter Jackson film, but lacked something, possibly because he wrote the screenplay but didn’t direct. The potential was there, but sadly the film didn’t live up to it.