This high octane adaptation of Philip
Reeve’s novel ticks a lot of cinematic boxes so it is puzzling as to why it
ended up faring so poorly. Its been called a “steampunk Star Wars” (and worse) but Mortal
Engines is not the dud its been made out to be, at least as far as I’m
concerned. It looks fantastic, it provides plenty of thrills and spills and the
setting is an interesting one. Yet somehow the film didn’t chime with the public
which is a shame as my feeling at the end of it is that I’d have liked to see a
sequel. Certainly this depiction of a dystopian world in the aftermath of a terrible
`Sixty Minute` war avoids the usual clichés instead depicting what remains of
the city of London. This version of the city though runs along on huge wheels swallowing
up smaller wheeled towns like a predator, salvaging what it can and integrating
the people into its own. Where it not written long before the word Brexit was
invented you could mistake it for some sort of allegory about the issue though
it certainly has something to say about our capital city. I’m sure the novel
probably goes further in detailing the parallels because losing sovereignty of
a city or even ideas is very much what the story is about. That this version of
London is depicted as a ravenous beast that can never get enough resources from
smaller towns to keep it moving certainly rings a bell! Someone does actually
declare “we should never have entered Europe” when fuel is running low so
perhaps this an early version of the Brexit debate (the story was published in
2001) but turned on its head. Here it’s not Europe that’s the problem – it’s
London.
