Steampunk

particularly want to spend time. It’s combat-heavy too, but not in an especially enthralling way.

One thing the film does have going for it is a resilient female lead, Hester Shaw (Icelandic actress Hera Hilmar), a survivor of childhood violence compelled to take revenge on her mother’s killer.

Another is a bizarre form of conquest that’s illustrated in the extensive opening action sequence, in which one mobile society – in this case, a condensed version of London – races on giant treads across a rough wasteland in pursuit of a smaller community in order to literally gobble it up.

There’s a milder, less demented Mad Max quality to the set-piece that decidedly rivets the attention, even if the sheer physics of it seem more than a bit preposterous.

What the mobile community of the new London is fixated on around 1 700 years in the future seems to be the design elements of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, mixed with the ability to achieve high-speed traction across rough landscapes and excellent industrial digestion that allows the assimilation of desired old landmarks.

Slipping through the mayhem is the hooded Hester, who gets close enough to London big shot Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving) to stab him as she says, “This is for my mum”, although she can’t finish him off. | Hollywood Reporter