It's a bad sign when a film is being advertised as "From the Filmmakers of The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit" on every trailer and poster. Directed by Christian Rivers, Peter Jackson has only a Producer role in the film. But if they need to use such tactics to try and draw people in to buy a ticket, then it can't be that good a film; the premise and lore actually sound rather intriguing.
The idea of some apocalyptic event wiping out most of the human race and the remainder of the world living in moving cities that have become predatory, consuming smaller mobile cities. Who doesn't love the idea of giant robot fights? Mortal Engines is effectively a giant robot fight combined with a death race...so Mad Max: Fury Road on a greater scale.
What the film does do well is its world building. Bringing these large rolling cities to life in a plausible way is no mean feat, creating a variety of styles and shapes for different factions, as well as looking at the living conditions of different areas of the world, it was beautifully done. But the main characters were some of the worst caricatures I have come across.
Hera Hilmar plays Hester Shaw, our main protagonist. In our first introduction to the character, she looks like a complete badass with the red scarf covering much of the face, juxtaposing the stunning blue eyes. After she removes the scarf, however, she goes from experienced anarchist to troubled child, looking like Elijah Wood, with the facial expression abilities of Kristen Stewart (who is so forgettable, that I had to Google "twilight chick" to get the name). When your entire arc involves one swift attack, followed by hours of retreating until she finds the MacGuffin....well, no amount of forced exposition can fix that.
Hugo Weaving plays the typical villain who follows all of the tropes and is entirely predictable, which makes it more painful that he is one of the better performances in the film. The stand-out performance actually comes from Stephen Lang's portrayal of Shrike. Somehow the faceless killing undead beast was able to have the most emotionally investing backstory.
The story was far too rushed. This should have been split into a trilogy. The attack on Weaving's Thaddeus Valentine would make a good first film, focusing on the life of Londoners and the contrast between that and the life of Hester as she makes her move. The second film could follow her escape through the Wildlands and the creation of the machine at St Paul's, before ending on the final film with the London vs Shan Guo battle.
Visually, the film was beautiful, but there was not enough time to really bring focus to the people. Our protagonists were empty shells, devoid of any character development that would help us empathise with them. Such a wasted opportunity.