10 Reasons Mortal Engines Was The Dumbest Movie Of 2018

It cannot be stressed enough that Mortal Engines is built entirely around the premise of cities that have been converted to gigantic, massive tanks called "traction cities" that roam the land in search of resources and forgotten technology from the pre-apocalyptic world. Just to be clear, these aren't city-sized tanks, either — they're full-on cities, complete with buildings, marketplaces, and skylines, right down to recognizable landmarks like St. Paul's Cathedral, which sits at the top of the now-mobile London and will eventually be the home of a doomsday weapon. More on that in a moment.

This is, by any standard, an extremely goofy premise. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though — plenty of great movies are rooted in silly ideas. One of the biggest franchises of all time pretty much boils down to space wizards poking at each other with laser swords, and 2018's biggest blockbuster was the story of a giant purple spaceman using a magic glove to fight a tree, a sad robot, and a man in a very cool kitty cat costume. Describe it in those terms, and Infinity War sounds like a fever dream, but you'd be hard pressed to find moviegoers who thought that inherent goofiness did anything to keep it from being awesome.

At the same time, the fact that Mortal Engines is starting with the idea that the city of London is now a cannibalistic tank doesn't do it any favors once it starts layering everything else on top of it.

Given that we've already discussed the inherent silliness of the plot and the movie's trouble living up to it, it would be easy to believe that the visuals of Mortal Engines would have a similarly hard time conveying the appeal of this world. The weird thing is, they don't. Not at all.

In fact, Mortal Engines is a beautifully designed film. As goofy as the core idea of "traction cities" might be, the visuals of the movie sell the concept perfectly. London itself is fascinating to look at, this towering, mobile fortress capped off with a ruined St. Paul's Cathedral as a signifier of the destruction suffered in the apocalyptic 60-Minute War. The massive roaring lions mounted at the front of the city — the famous statues from Trafalgar Square scaled up to Kaiju size in line with the city — the battle-scarred Union Jack that slides open to reveal London's all-consuming maw, the plazas (complete with windshields) where the citizens cheer on the destruction of rival cities like they're watching a World Cup qualifier? All of that stuff looks great.

Just going by the visuals, you'd have no problem believing that Peter Jackson was a producer on the film. Unfortunately, when they're contrasted with the rest of the movie's flaws, those breathtaking visuals only really serve to remind viewers that this movie could be a lot better than it actually is.

On the subject of Hugo Weaving, it's worth mentioning that his character, Thaddeus Valentine, has exactly one trait, and it is Capital-E Evil.

That is, of course, to be expected, since dystopian post-apocalyptic societies are usually not run by kindly, benevolent scientists, although at this point that might actually be the only way to get around the inherent cliches of the genre. Valentine, however, takes that to the extreme: his entire motivation is to take control of a doomsday weapon so that he can kill the largest possible amount of people in his goal of feeding all of Asia to London, piece by piece, rather than, say, engaging in trade with what by all accounts appears to be a prospering civilization that also has gigantic guns aimed westward.

There's probably a metaphor for colonialism in there somewhere — it would be hard to miss when the entire story focuses on the city/tank that was the capital of one of history's largest colonial empires, even if the wardrobe styling wasn't deliberately Victorian — but it's all muddled up in truly cartoonish ruthlessness. Valentine is the kind of villain who commits mass murder on the mere suggestion that someone might uncover hints of his evil past, or his genocidal plan... which he unveils to the approval of a cheering crowd. This, in turn, raises the question of why he had to keep it so secret if everyone was down with all his murders anyway. 

Also? It turns out he's actually really bad at being a villain, since his go-to murder tactic involves kicking someone into what is basically a large and fun-looking slide from which London poops its excess building material. No, seriously.

Rounding out our cast of heroic characters is Anna Fang, an anti-traction-city terrorist/freedom fighter whose costuming makes her look like she's doing a really great job of cosplaying as Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes. She's introduced very early on as an enemy of the state (or city... or tank), and later appears as an unvarnished deus ex machina, saving Hester and Tom from being sold into slavery in the scene where Mortal Engines gets its most Mad Max.

More than any other character in the film, Anna exists as a plot contrivance. She literally ferries the main characters from one set piece to the next on multiple occasions, while offering up exposition and crucial background information. Her own backstory is mentioned, but her actual motivations are never explored. Instead, she's sort of reduced to a caricature of a Han Solo type, except for the parts where Han is fallible and likable — and if you like comparisons to Star Wars, buckle up, friends, because we're getting there.

It's worth noting that while (spoiler warning) Anna dies at the climax of the film, she's actually brought back in the novels as a zombie robot that tries to take over the world. So, you know, on the off chance that Mortal Engines gets a sequel, we have that bit of buck wild nonsense to look forward to.

And now we get to the most hilariously egregious of Mortal Engines' many, many sins. Remember earlier, when we mentioned comparisons to Star Wars? There's a reason you're going to want to keep that film in mind if you ever watch this one (and you should). At the end of Mortal Engines, they just straight up do the endings of all three original Star Wars movies. In order. Without even changing them up.

First, of course, is the Death Star run from Star Wars. In this case, that's represented by a squadron of plucky young pilots, including the naive young man that we've been following for the entire movie as he joined this rebellion against British-accented evil guys and their hugely destructive laser weapon. It hits the same beats, including other, less plot-relevant pilots sacrificing their lives and exploding against the surface of the Death St — er, London. Then, a bit later, we get a second Death Star run, only this time it takes place inside London, with Tom trying to blow up the city's (mortal) engine from within. The imagery is so reminiscent of Lando blowing up the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi that it can't be anything but intentional. They have to know what they're doing — they used "join the Rebellion" as a tagline in the trailers!

Sandwiched between those, of course, we have Mortal Engines' take on The Empire Strikes Back, in which it is revealed that Thaddeus Valentine is — gasp — actually Hester's father! There's even an "Obi-Wan never told you" moment, switched around to be about Hester's mom. To its credit, it is jaw-droppingly bold to rip off the ending of not just Star Wars, but the entire original trilogy, and hope that nobody will notice. But jeez, Mortal Engines. Even when you're copying someone's homework, you want to change a couple of answers so that it's not so obvious, and math class is significantly less famous than Star Wars.