Looks good, feels empty

MORTAL Engines producer Peter Jackson is known for creating big world-building films these days, and he isn’t shy about taking popular books and turning them into big-screen reality.

But despite the massive success of his Lord of the Rings trilogy (which almost overnight made people forget about his early schlock classics such as Brain Dead and Meet

the Feebles, and the rather excellent Heavenly Creatures), Jackson’s record has been a bit hit and miss ever since. In the case of Mortal

Engines — adapted from the first in a popular young adult novel series by Philip Reeve — this special effects-driven film definitely benefits from Jackson’s expertise and vision in this area, and thankfully it is edited down to a respectable two hours and 10 minutes.

But somewhere in all of this admittedly thrilling spectacle, the storytelling and characterisation have been pushed to one side, resulting in an action adventure that is thrilling but not as engaging as it could have been.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future where the Earth’s surface has been ravaged by global geological upheaval and most big population centres were exterminated in the “60 Minute War”, the remaining major cities have evolved to survive.

London is now one of the great traction cities, the remnants of the war-ruined city lifted up and placed atop a giant motorised base, which now roams the Earth constantly on massive tracks, devouring any other settlement in its path, shredding them into their basic components for re-use.

Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) is not running from London like everyone else, though. She has a grudge to settle with Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving), an influential leader on London. Meanwhile, Thaddeus has a secret plan of his own, which is bad news for the anti-traction rebellion.

While Jackson worked as producer, the movie was directed by feature film debutant Christian Rivers, who has worked as a storyboard artist on many of Jackson’s other projects, including King Kong and Lord

of the Rings. This background explains the arresting visual style of the film and the beautiful shot composition.

With its steampunk aesthetic and magnificent images of giant predator cities and strange flying machines,

Mortal Engines is stunning to watch, and the action sequences — of which there are many — are quite thrilling.

But this surface-level focus has also led to the human elements being neglected in the production. The two leads in the film are likable enough, but by the time the credits rolled I had virtually forgotten their names and struggled to think of any way of describing their characters.

Hester is the central protagonist and there are a few moments in which she really shines and we learn a bit about her life and background. But these moments are oddly disconnected from the rest of the story, not woven into the surrounding film so much as stacked on top of it.

Her companion, Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan), is even more thinly sketched. He spews a bit of exposition about himself in the opening scenes and that is basically all we learn about him. I liked both characters, but I just didn’t really care about them enough.

Even Hugo Weaving, who makes an excellent villain, makes perfect sense as a character and plays his role superbly, but his motivations and emotional interests are so murky as to be tokenistic. I didn’t know who he was.

All of this is in stark contrast to one character who was written surprisingly well. Shrike (Stephen Lang) is a reanimated assassin — a zombie clockwork Terminator, if you like — who is hunting Hester. He is genuinely terrifying to look at, the creature design and CGI blending to create a truly arresting and creepy monster.

But what is most astonishing about Shrike is the depth of character that is built around him during the story. This rotting, clanking, heartless hunk of rancid flesh and machinery turns out to be the most believable, textured and sympathetic character in the whole film.

The sound design is also interesting, consisting largely of a pummelling orchestral score and the almost constant throb of the massive engines working beneath London.

The movie is relentlessly loud, all in order to accentuate one pristine moment of total silence at the end. It is very effective, but it means putting up with two hours of bleeding ears first.

The pacing is good, combined with a simple, straight-line narrative that is easy to follow, so you can just enjoy the experience of watching the protagonists run from one action set-piece to the next. And while it might be a little bit clunky at times, the movie does a good job of establishing its universe pretty quickly in the opening few scenes. You’re up to speed with the story in short order.

There are four books, and I suppose the grand plan is to try to spin it off into four movies: it is Peter Jackson, after all. And I hope it does.

While Mortal Engines might be a case of style over substance, there is a very rich world waiting to be brought to life again and plenty of work still to be done on a couple of characters I really wanted to get to know better.

Mortal Engines (M) is now showing at Village Cinemas and Cmax. Rating: