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Over-Engineered

Back in June I watched dystopian steampunk film Mortal Engines on Netflix, primarily to see how convincing the world building was, and also because it was going away on June 30th. I'm a selective fan of very good steampunk, as long as it's not ridiculous. This flick has pretty decent special effects, which made it watchable. The conflict, characters and the world-building plausibility, not so much.

Basically a thousand years after an apocalyptic war leaves much of the earth scorched, poisoned and useless, cities have gone mobil like humongous tanks, and race around gobbling up smaller towns and bergs. It makes for cool special effects but I never really understood why you'd turn an entire city into a cannibalistic tank. Seems like a lot to haul around. Anyway, London has become an enormous predator city and is also secretly building a not-so-secret weapon using thousand year old tech that was responsible for nearly destroying the world last time there was that big war. Yes, that should end well.

In the midst of all this hoopla there's a slightly disfigured girl seeking revenge, a poor but kind-hearted boy who gets caught up in her quest, another, much-better-off girl who finds out her father is not the great guy she thought he was, and her guy sidekick, a really cool Asian chick who runs around causing random chaos as she hunts the disfigured girl and dodges the big bad guy, the big bad guy (who got dumber with every moment that passed) and lots of flashbacks to a past that is supposed to tie it altogether. I followed the entangled mess okay, but I think it probably confused half the audience. Too many characters with too much baggage dressed up like interesting folks but just there to jump into every action scene without enough time to tell their stories = disappointing movie.

I'm not sorry I watched it, but with some judiciously editing and a few major changes in the world-building it could have been done a lot better. Not available on Netflix anymore, alas. If you can borrow the film on DVD it might be worth a watch, but please don't pay for it.

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