Yes, I watched mortal engines yesterday. Would you like to hear all about it? Okay! Here we go.
Tharr be spoilerres, watch your step
Welcome to the wilds of postapocalyptic Europe. In which British imperialism has made a BIG comeback, as a sort of a wackier, noisier allegory for... itself!
London is now a city on wheels, rampaging around the wasteland and literally eating smaller cities (which are also on wheels).
It swallows them whole, absorbs their populations into the lower rungs of its rigid class system, sifts for small treasures, then chops up the victim city and burns it for fuel.
Colonialism, get it? I do. I Get It.
It looks pretty great. If you are mainly interested in seeing an extra-huge cgi version of Howl's Moving Castle fighting with regular-sized Howl's Moving Castles, you can see that here. Though all that's mostly done after the first twenty minutes.
There are characters! Our lead is Missy Scarsface, foundling of the outlands and seasoned revenge-seeker. Her sidekick is Hot Justin Long, a scrappy young London historian-slash-maintenance-man who just can't stop helping.
Missy has not one but TWO extreme daddy issues, which drive our plot. Hot Justin is pretty much just along for the ride.
Her first daddy issue is that Agent Elrond murdered her mom. The movie tells us kind of clearly that he's her dad in the first reel but she doesn't figure it out until they reenact the climax from Empire Strikes Back a couple hours later. Anyway, she wants to stab him pretty bad.
Agent Elrond, by the way, has infiltrated the London government and is making it Even More Evil, as if that were necessary. He's trying to bring back the Super Duper Neutron Inversion Bombs that caused this whole dang apocalypse in the first place! Seems like a bad plan.
Missy Scarsface's second daddy issue is that her foster dad is a Terminator. He's also sort of a Robocop, but mostly he's a Terminator. So his approach to parenting involves hunting her down and terminating her (natch). And she's out way past curfew.
This is the best part of the movie. I would have been very happy for the whole story to be about this relationship between Terminator foster dad and Missy Scarsface. I take what I can get.
(@charliejane informs me that Mortal Engines accidentally took five extra years to come out and meanwhile Termynatyr Gynysyys covered that exact plot. I slept through that terminator movie so the concept was fresh to me.)
Anyway, a bunch of stuff happens. Missy and Hot Justin are almost sold for meat at auction but get saved by Rockabilly Trinity, a sky pirate who's into Matrix cosplay and who conspires against Municipal Darwinism in her spare time.
She takes them to Steampunk Reboot Of Bespin to meet her fashionable sky pirate friends and do some conspiring. But curfew, remember? Daddy Issue 2: Judgment Day shows up to explode the whole floating town. Hardly any sky pirates escape.
Meanwhile, Agent Elrond has a fully operational Super Duper Quantum Neutron Explodosphere Catapult and literally nothing can stop it except for a small USB disguised as the necklace from Dr Strange. Luckily, Missy has one of those.
Agent Bad Daddy is approaching Helm's Deep! He's shooting fireballs at the gate! Everyone who lives there is nice! This won't do!
So the remaining sky pirates and Missy and even Hot Justin do the bombing run from episodes IV, VI, I, & VII on 'em, take out the engine core, plug in the USB, and, save the day.
Plugging in the USB is my favorite. There's a six digit confirmation code. But screens and keyboards are from an earlier age. She seriously can't figure it out. Runs the bomb timer down to the last second trying to get her head around the 2FA. Very relatable.
The Governor of Asia lets the surviving Londoners stagger through the hole in his wall, to join and live in post-colonial harmony (BIG MISTAKE, THOSE FUCKERS WERE JUST CHEERING FOR YOUR DEATH) and everyone lives happily ever after, probably.
Final verdict? I was not bored.
[big thanks to @Annaleen for treating us to this IMAX EXPERIENCE]
