Four stars. Rated PG-13 for dramatic intensity and sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang
This one’s relentless.
Director Christian Rivers’ exhilarating adaptation of Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines is sci-fi world-building on a scale we’ve not seen since Lord of the Rings and Avatar. This impressively ambitious, post-apocalyptic saga hits the ground running — literally — and doesn’t let up during a bravura 127-minute adventure that barely seems long enough to contain its opulent wonders.
 |
| Out of the frying pan, and into the fire? Tom (Robert Sheehan) and Hester (Hera Hilmar, right) are moments from a fate worse than death, when they're snatched away by the enigmatic Anna Fang (Jihae). But is this a rescue ... or something more sinister? |
Scripters Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson have done an impressive job of condensing Reeve’s 2001 young adult novel into a slam-bang romp that faithfully follows roughly half the book and hits most of the key plot beats. (That said, Walsh & Co. deviate seriously during the climax, likely in the interest of anticipating a sequel.)
These events take place a millennium after what has come to be known as the “Sixty Minute War,” when Western nations unleashed a cataclysmic weapon that destroyed much of civilization, while causing planet-wide geological upheaval. Forced to adapt to earthquakes, volcanoes and other instabilities that continued for hundreds of years, metropolitan centers were retrofitted with massive wheels and engines, in order to become mobile “traction cities”: a steampunk method of survival known as Municipal Darwinism.
Countries have vanished; civilization per se has developed into cooperative bands of peaceful small-town traders, constantly on the alert for fast-moving, scavenger settlements.
Along with the biggest threat of all: the massive predator city of London, which hunts, pursues and dismantles (devours) other cities for resources.
All this by way of back-story, because Rivers opens the film without preamble, as the massive bulk of London chases down a small mining community known as Salthook. Production designer Dan Hennah, cinematographer Simon Raby and a huge visual effects team — Ken McGaugh, Kevin Smith, Luke Millar and Dennis Yoo, take a well-deserved bow — swoop the camera in, around and through London’s jaw-dropping hugeness and complexity, layered with bits and bobs clearly snatched from countless earlier captures.
It’s an absolutely amazing, stunning sequence, particularly as many of London’s thousands of residents gather at their city’s layered edges, cheering the pursuit with the bloodthirsty savagery of heartless nationalists (an allusion to current real-world behavior, in which this film frequently indulges).
Salthook has maneuverability and quick turns in its favor, but it can’t compete with London’s stronger engines. The outcome is inevitable, with one of the smaller community’s residents — a young woman with a red scarf concealing part of her face — watching with (we’re surprised) what appears to be mixed feelings.
Salthook’s citizens are “welcomed” into London, although there’s a strong hint that they’ll become slave labor in the massive city’s machine-laden underlevels. By this point, we’ve also met Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan), an apprentice historian who helps extract valuable “old tech” before it becomes “food” for the massive city’s insatiable “gut.” He works for London Museum curator Chudleigh Pomeroy (Colin Salmon), also a senior member of the History Guild. They’re clearly “decent folks.”
On this particular day, the museum is visited by Katherine (Leila George), a privileged young woman who lives in London’s top tier. She’s warm, kind and sensitive; she immediately takes a shine to Tom, sharing his enthusiasm for the artifacts that hearken back to the world that once was.
The red-scarfed young woman, meanwhile, is revealed as Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar), who has allowed herself to be “captured” by London for one reason: to avenge a horrific childhood wrong by assassinating Thaddeus Valentine, London’s lead archaeologist.
Ah, but since Valentine is played by Hugo Weaving, long one of cinema’s go-to Machiavellian villains, we immediately know that he’s no mere archaeologist. Particularly since he’s been given a very long leash by London’s stuffy Lord Mayor, Magnus Crome (Patrick Malahide). What exactly is Valentine up to, in the upper reaches of St. Paul’s Cathedral?
At this point, we’re scarcely 20 minutes into this high-octane epic, and events continue to pelt our two de facto protagonists — Tom and Hester — who are thrown into each other’s company, despite not trusting each other a jot.
Things get even more chaotic with the arrival of bad-ass Anna Fang (South Korean singer/songwriter and actress Jihae), a notorious “anti-tractionist” resistance fighter and aviatrix, who pilots an airship dubbed the Jenny Haniver.
Additional eye-popping wonders include the balloon-suspended Airhaven, a neutral “Switzerland in the air” that serves as home base for aviators and rogue anti-tractionists; the camouflaged townlet of Scuttlebutt, which hides from larger predator cities by burrowing underground; and Shan Gou, an enormous Asian community sheltered by the Himalayan mountains and an impregnable “shield wall” that has kept it isolated for hundreds of years.
The story’s characters — the human element — easily could have been overwhelmed by so much steampunk razzle-dazzle, particularly since Rivers is a special effects maestro turned first-time feature director; he does, at times, lose track of his flesh-and-blood stars. (He has worked alongside Jackson ever since 1992’s Dead Alive, and most famously on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies.)
To their credit, Jackson and his co-scripters do their best to minimize that shortcoming. Characterization is sketched thinly at best, but it’s enough to elicit our essential emotional involvement.
The Icelandic Hilmar has the grim determination of a woman wronged, whose chaotic childhood easily justifies her trust issues. It’s necessary for her to thaw over time, of course, and Hilmar persuasively navigates the emotional difficulty with which Hester gradually, reluctantly admits her back-story.
Sheehan’s Tom is introduced as a sheltered intellectual whose idealistic enthusiasm must, rather abruptly, yield to grittier pragmatism. His angst-laden innocence is touching, but also dangerous; he’s an impulsive, would-be hero who too quickly — and too frequently — rushes in where angels fear to tread. Sheehan maintains a boyish cockiness and loyalty that make Tom both admirable and vulnerable.
Jihae’s Anna Fang is the ultimate warrior: taciturn, lightning-quick, calmly capable and quite deadly. She’s more archetype than credible person, but Jihae definitely is a distinctive presence, thanks to the hairstyle and dark sunglasses.
Weaving’s Valentine exudes power-hungry arrogance: a villain who clearly believe that the end justifies any means necessary. George’s Katherine seems little more than a pretty face at first blush, but she eventually must navigate a shattering realization; the actress ably handles the shift.
By far the most interesting character, however, is a half-human, half-mechanical “Resurrected Man” known as a Shrike (a term snatched, without so much as a by-your-leave, from sci-fi novelist Dan Simmons’ Hyperion series). He’s a flat-out scary presence, with razor-sharp limbs, luminescent green eyes and a guttural shriek of fury: a weaponized assassin that’ll implacably track a target until it’s killed. But actor Stephen Lang gives this monstrous presence the vestiges of a soul: a dim, randomly flickering awareness of the human life it once had.
Brutish slayer or not, the Shrike adds a combustible jolt to the overall character dynamic.
As this epic slides into its third act, however, it becomes clear that more than a little has been borrowed from the Star Wars template. Impulsive young hero — Tom (Luke Skywalker) — check. Plucky young heroine with a serious ax to grind — Hester (Princess Leia) — check. Adroit Jedi warrior — Anna Fang (Obi-Wan Kenobi) — check.
And let’s face it: This film’s climax couldn’t be more like Star Wars’ make-or-break assault on the Death Star.
I’d prefer to believe this isn’t lazy scripting, but rather deliberate homage, given that the entire third act deliberately strays rather far from Reeve’s book. Familiarity certainly doesn’t breed contempt; Rivers’ finale is every bit as exciting as the rest of his film.
Granted, these are superficial popcorn thrills, although Rivers and his scripters deliver at least one impressively emotional jolt. Sometimes a breathtaking sense of wonder is enough to carry a film, and that’s certainly the case here. Deeper character layering can wait until the sequel … and I hope we get one.
No comments:
Post a Comment