12A, 128 mins
Shortly after the digitally rendered dust settles on the eye-popping action sequence that opens Mortal Engines, the issue of Brexit ripples thousands of years into our desolate future.
“Going into Europe — biggest mistake we ever made,” despairs the Mayor of London (Patrick Malahide) as he surveys a post-apocalyptic wasteland dotted with motorised cities mounted on caterpillar tracks.
Adapted from the novel of the same title by Philip Reeve, Christian Rivers’ rollicking action adventure doesn’t stoke that political fire any further but does make a few mis-steps over the course of two breathlessly enjoyable hours.
The script, penned by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, engineers of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, grinds through clunky interludes.
More than once, first-time director Rivers falls back on his Oscar-winning background as a visual effects supervisor and allows spectacle to trump substance.
By happy accident or cynical design, there are echoes of another fantastical saga during the picture’s rousing climax — specifically, the thrilling Death Star trench run from A New Hope and a pivotal exchange from The Empire Strikes Back.
Mortal Engines is bolted together from the first book of a four-part odyssey set many centuries after the cataclysmic Sixty Minute War.
Survivors huddle on mobile metropolises fashioned from scavenged parts that “ingest” the resources of rival cities to feed roaring furnaces.
The largest of these behemoths is London, commanded by Mayor Magnus Crome (Patrick Malahide) with guidance from noted academic Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving).
Masked assassin Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) sneaks aboard London and attempts to assassinate Valentine in front of his daughter Katherine (Leila George).
Apprentice historian Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) intervenes before a fatal blow can be struck and, during the subsequent chase, he tumbles off a gangway and regains consciousness next to Hester in the wilderness.
The fugitives are forced to work together as they encounter famed pilot Anna Fang (Jihae) and a half-human, half-machine warrior called Shrike (Stephen Lang), whose past is inextricably entwined with the girl.
Mortal Engines is a solid opening chapter that trades in gob-smacking set-pieces and product placement.
DS
See interview, right
There’s a new Hollywood heroine in town shaking things up. And Icelandic actress Hera Hilmar, who plays her, reckons a character like this on the big screen is long overdue.
She’s talking about her role as the main character — Hester Shaw — in Peter Jackson’s new big-screen epic, Mortal Engines.
Hester is a fugitive on the run, who wants to avenge her mother Pandora’s murder.
She forms an unlikely friendship with Tom Natsworthy (played by Misfits star Robert Sheehan), who lives in London, and the pair embark on a journey to stop Thaddeus Valentine (played by Hugo Weaving) causing chaos and destruction.
A talking point about Hester has been her appearance and a deep scar across her face, given to her years earlier during the tragedy that took her mother’s life.
Discussing how Hester’s appearance on screen speaks to women having power beyond their looks, Hilmar says: “To have a heroine that happens to be scarred on the face, is something that is still hard for Hollywood to swallow and it’s a huge step in terms of letting women be flawed.
“It asks the question ‘What is beauty and what is beautiful?’ and that’s a lot of what Hester is about, that part of the story that beauty is flawed and it isn’t being perfect like all the Instagram filters tell us today.
“It’s nice to put something like that out there in the world today, I feel.”
Hilmar, who has had a recurring role in TV series Da Vinci’s Demons, was pleased when she saw Hester’s scar for the first time.
“My first reaction to seeing the scar as me, myself, was that’s really cool, because that’s how we see a lot of the heroes who are usually male: they have scars, they’re cool, they’re rugged,” she says.
“And women want to be that too — they don’t want to be men, but they want to be allowed to be free and colourful and flawed.”
But her part does more than this to advance women on screen, she argues.
“Even if we forget the scar for a second,” says Hilmar, “if you look at how she’s written, not enough female characters are written in that
❝ What kind of world do we want to live in and what will we sacrifice, to live in that world?
multi-dimensional way and they have a story arc that is usually used for male characters and so that’s something that is exciting.”
The film, directed by Christian Rivers and with a screenplay written by Jackson and his longtime collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, is based on the books penned in the early 2000s by British author Philip Reeve.
The narrative is set years after an event called the Sixty Minute War has destroyed humankind as we know it. Gigantic, mechanised cities move along the earth’s surface, ingesting smaller cities as they go, with London described as “a giant predator city on wheels”.
Another of the leading ladies who shares a lot of screen time with Hilmar’s Hester is Anna Fang, played by South Korean-born singer Jihae.
A newcomer to the big screen, she grew up in the United States and has forged a career for herself as a musician.
“It’s kind of revolutionary to have the main star have this scar on her face; I think it’s really cool,” Jihae muses.
Of her character Anna, she says: “I’ve never before seen on a project of this scale — but also even on an Indie level — an ethnic woman, specifically an Asian woman, having such a powerful role. It just didn’t exist, so that was really exciting.”
Both are struck by how relevant the topics explored in the film are today, despite the books being written more than a decade ago.
“Global warming in some ways too, just what the Earth has become,” says Hilmar. “I think about it even when we talk about global warming, people have been talking about the same thing since the Eighties and you kind of go, ‘People were saying this then’ and the books were written around 2000.”
She adds: “I think it’s very relevant to what is happening today in terms of politics and I guess humanity has been doing this always, taking over land and moving people.” She pauses before continuing: “I think it makes you think about what kind of world do we want to live in and what are we willing to sacrifice, to live in that world?”
Jihae nods in agreement, saying: “It’s a good reminder in a way that if we keep going on like this — (with a) profit, power-driven, divided world — we are going to end up like Mortal Engines and there might be a Sixty Minute War that we don’t want to happen.
“So it poses the question, are we in a sustainable system to survive as humanity?”
Mortal Engines is previewed in cinemas today and on general release next Friday