Category: Review

Mortal Engines

  By

Dieter: ★★★½
Jim: ★★★

“Meals on Wheels.”

Note from Jim: A slightly different approach here, with Dieter and myself collaborating on this review, so it’s going to be more of a back-and-forth, and also rather longer than our usual reviews! So get a cup of coffee… And a sandwich. :)

Top of the Flops?

Mortal Engines did, indeed, prove very mortal. Variety estimated it would possibly lose $125 million. The film failed to make back even its $100 million budget worldwide, never mind marketing costs, closing out at a mere $82 million. Let’s start by discussing cinematic failure in general.

Dieter: Sometimes it seems a film’s fate is decided before anyone has actually seen it, or before countless movie reviewers copy what other movie reviewers already wrote. It becomes a meme, repeated by everyone and spreading like a virus, until it becomes a reality and the respective movie then really flops or becomes a great success. A couple of years ago, when the first trailer for the Edgar Rice Burroughs’ adaptation John Carter came out, people saw the fight between the hero and the giant white gorillas in the trailer and decided it was a Star Wars rip-off, John Carter was done. Not even I watched it in the cinema. I regretted that later when discovering the movie on DVD and found it to be a sympathetic, enjoyable SF-actioner.

My theory is this: A potential cinemagoer sees a trailer and immediately decides whether or not they will like a movie – or at least give it a chance. And it’s usually not a rational choice, just a gut feeling, a kind of “I like it, that looks good / funny / exciting,” or “Nah, that’s nonsense / stupid / don’t like that actor / actress”, etc. Afterwards people try to rationalize why, and come up with a lot of different reasons that – when looked more closely at – are not that logical at all. I think this also is true for a lot of reviewers.

I do remember that in the 80s, we used to go into a movie without prior knowledge other than maybe a poster or trailer. We either liked it or not, and that was it. Now – and I’m as guilty as anyone – we read and watch countless reviews, look at sites like rottentomatoes and try to “nitpick”. If there is a single little thing we don’t like or consider as flawed, it increases exponentially in size for us compared to other aspects, and we end up discounting a movie entirely, due to this one element. This may be why it feels we have a tougher time just enjoying movies today.

Jim: There are times when it does feel almost pre-determined that a film will bomb: it’s rare for a “surprise flop”. I think marketing has become much more of an exact science these days, to the point that a film’s opening weekend can usually be projected fairly accurately beforehand. John Carter is a good example of a film which was dead on arrival. There’s no apparent logic to it, in terms of quality. I mean Cutthroat Island is not great, but it’s decent enough. I could name half a dozen worse movies, without leaving Michael Bay’s filmography.

Yet, not all flops are equal, it seems. Browse Wikpedia’s list of box-office bombs for the last couple of years. Notorious, well-known bombs like Valerian, The Mummy and Geostorm. But potentially worse than any of those was… A Wrinkle In Time? They kept that a bit quieter – the paranoid in me suspects because it went against the multicultural narrative being pushed with the success of Black Panther. But even there, it was not a surprise, least of all to Disney.

But specifically, where did Engines break down?

Mortally wounded

Dieter: When the first trailers for this Young Adult Sci-Fi/Steampunk book adaptation with franchise ambitions came out, a majority of online reviewers reacted with “Cities on wheels that devour other cities? Nah, that’s stupid nonsense – much too fantastical!”. Insert a rant from me how audiences are able to accept many other VERY fantastical and nonsensical concepts. They clearly didn’t have this problem with Into the Spider-verse or Aquaman. Still, something didn’t “click” with them and that may have been the death knell for this movie, regardless of its qualities or failings. That’s kind of regrettable, I think. Despite the movie’s undoubted flaws, it actually offers an interesting new concept.

Maybe audiences don’t really want something new. They want something that feels fresh and new – but essentially is still the same. It’s a strange kind of contradiction that is difficult for film studios to deal with. For all its shortcomings, The Last Jedi tried to do something new, and split the fandom (I didn’t like this movie either, by the way!). On the other hand, James Bond is a series that has obviously managed to re-invent itself again and again, yet still maintains most of its core audience. So count me among the people who don’t think that cities on wheels is too bonkers a premise!

Jim: It wasn’t helped by an almost complete lack of star power. Beyond Hugo Weaving, it has a guy who gets killed early in Resident Evil and Balon Greyjoy. [I’m excluding Stephen Lang, whose role is…limited, shall we say] This is also a difficult concept to get over quickly, in a way that (as Dieter notes) doesn’t sound silly, and that’s what films need to do in order to create momentum. ‘From the producers of Lord of the Rings’ doesn’t hold nearly as much weight as it did, considering it’s now 15 years since the end of that trilogy.

And live-action fantasy generally has had a rough go of it lately. The Dark Tower. Seventh Son. Pan. The BFG. All based from reasonably popular literature with a built-in audience. All released since the start of 2015. All bombs. Counter-examples of commercial success over the same time are hard to find, save Harry Potter prequels and Disney’s live-action efforts such as Beauty and the Beast. If people want fantasy, these days it seems as if they turn on Game of Thrones instead.

The play’s the thing…

Thousands of years in the future, after something called “The 60-minute war”, the knowledge of our world today has been lost. But new technology has enabled mankind to put their cities on wheels. These predators now roll over the wasted earth and “devour” other cities, to get the resources necessary to function, in what is called “municipal Darwinism”.

In one such hunt, Hester Shaw (Hilmar) boards London. A mysterious woman with a red scarf over her face – strangely, no one ever seems to find that suspicious! – she attacks Thaddeus Valentine (Weaving), Head of the Guild of Historians, in a failed assassination attempt. She escapes by dropping into an exit shaft, shortly followed by historian assistant Tom Natsworthy (Sheehan), pushed in by Valentine after overhearing Hester’s claims he killed her mother.

Together the mismatched pair try to get back to London, and stop Valentine, who is trying to put together an old superweapon in order to destroy the “Great Wall” in the East. Beyond it, the so-called “anti-tractionists” still have static conurbations, which would offer great food for London. Meanwhile, on Hester’s trail is Shrike, a re-animated cyborg who wants to punish her for for not keeping a promise to join him in cyborgness.

Been there, seen that…

Dieter: You can already predict how this will develop – and that’s one of the big shortcomings: We know this plot and many of its tropes too well, leaving too little of any element of surprise. For some people that’s already enough to discard the movie; though I understand that, I’d always argue it’s not the best reason. Still, there are elements reminding me directly of Hayao Miyazaki classics Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Howl’s Moving Castle; the Mad Max-movies; a Terminator-like character; a female rebel who’d probably feel at home in The Matrix, and a little bit of Terry Gilliam for seasoning. Heck, we even get a classic slave-trading market scene I immediately associated with those beloved old pirate movies from HW’s golden era!

Then there’s the second half of the movie, stealing directly from the Star Wars franchise, though one could argue it’s an age-old plot. But the similarities here are obvious, including the exit via shaft at the beginning, as in The Empire Strikes Back, and a floating city between the clouds. In particular, the superweapon destroyed by a group of courageous rebels has already become such a cliche, it has even started to bore Star Wars fans. And the final revelation about the – oh, gosh – “surprising” special relationship between the heroine and the uber-villain? That has a much longer beard than Hugo Weaving! Though, it has to be said, these things were already in the book – perhaps original author Philip Reeve should be the target of some criticism?

Jim: Holy Miyazaki. Holy Castle in the Sky, especially. Let’s review, shall we?

  • Orphan boy and girl brought together
  • The villain seeks to use ancient technology for military purposes
  • The pair are rescued by sky pirates, operating under the command of a woman
  • A literal flying city
  • Girl has a jewelry heirloom that’s key to stopping the villain
  • She’s also pursued by a large, lethal robot.

I’m sure there’s more, but it has been a good 20 years since I saw Castle. Then we have Howl’s Moving Castle, perhaps the most obvious touchstone for nomadic structures. Now, the book of Mortal Engines did come out before Miyazaki’s film… except the latter was a Studio Ghibli adaptation. The book by Diana Wynne Jones was published in 1984, well before Reeve’s story.

In the second half, as Dieter mentions, it turns into Star Wars, and isn’t subtle about it either. In particular, you have to wonder about the ‘special relationship’, not least because – unlike in the Star Wars universe – it doesn’t go anywhere. It adds nothing, and is almost cringe-inducingly staged here, as if deliberately trying to evoke its predecessor. It’s like having a horror movie where someone is stabbed to death with a carving knife in the shower. There’s inspiration, homage… and then there’s being blatantly obvious.  

Adapting to change

Dieter: An online reviewer got it right when he said this movie feels like the third or fourth movie in a series – the triumphant finale and an ultimate big bang. Unfortunately, without any build-up, you’re left to wonder why you should care, when a just introduced character bites the dust. It’s kind of a waste and I absolutely understand viewer frustration. But then again: It’s really not the screenwriters’ fault. This is how it was in the book. Maybe those in charge should not have stuck to it so closely? But they already took some liberties with the original, removing characters and story-arcs.

As late screenwriting legend William Goldman once wrote: “There is nothing worse than adapting a book for the big screen.” A book has time to develop characters – you don’t usually read a book in two hours – a luxury denied to movies. Inevitably, the question comes up of what to leave out. It really can’t be easy to adapt a book, especially one where a lot happens, as is the case here. For example, largely gone is the secondary couple, Valentine’s daughter Katherine (Leila George) and Bevis Pod (Ronan Raftery), a worker from the lower decks. In the book, chapters alternated between their story, and Hester + Tom, with occasional asides involving Valentine and Shrike). In the movie, we don’t get to see the slowly developing love story between Katherine and Bevis.

Mortal Engines offers a lot of spectacle and fascinating images over its runtime. But, like one of its big cities, the story moves relentlessly from set-piece to set-piece, and from action scene to action scene, hardly ever giving the audience time to take a breath. While we expect blockbusters today to move faster than in previous eras, it has become almost a forgotten art to construct a story or screenplay that allows for quiet. Those moments where you take the time to develop characters, their relationships to each other, have them explain themselves and their attitudes, or where they can expose themselves emotionally.

A good screenplay needs a rhythm: Ups and downs, moments of excitement and relaxation to make the journey enjoyable, like a well-timed roller-coaster ride. These moments are important for audiences – and even if they may not be aware of the need, they definitely miss them when they are not there. Unfortunately, Mortal Engines lacks these; maybe 3-4 times in the entire film, characters are allowed to be emotional and offer some insight into themselves. The rest of the time it’s “bang”, “rudder-rudder”, “peow” and “aawww”, perpetually accompanied by the adequate soundtrack of Junkie XL. I think a good movie should also have some scenes where the makers don’t feel the need to underlay them with music.

Jim: Having not read the book, I’m not qualified to offer much opinion in this area. But I do agree that this didn’t feel like the first entry. It literally begins with cities on wheels, hunting each other. Wait, what? I was thoroughly distracted, trying to figure out how the world got to that point. I get there was a war ‘n’ stuff. It still seems… a bit of a leap, shall we say. This kind of thing is easier to get away with in a book, where there’s not quite the same expectation that everything will necessarily “make sense” on page 1. If you lose your audience in a film, it’s almost impossible to get them back.

More generally, there’s no doubt about the problems adapting from the page to the screen. They are two different media entirely, and what works in one won’t necessarily in the other. Knowing that is essential, and why I don’t have much time for fans of, say, the Resident Evil games complaining about the movies being “different”. No kidding. If they weren’t, the films probably wouldn’t have become the successful franchise they did. But this is why buying the movie rights to a successful book is a minefield. Yes, it comes with a built-in audience. On the other hand, it comes with a built-in audience of critics!

Indirect direction

Dieter: The film was directed by Christopher Rivers, mainly known for his work in special effects, and a protégé of Peter Jackson, Maybe Jackson wanted to help get his career as a director going? Or perhaps Jackson didn’t feel so eager to direct, considering the stress and problems he had with his two Middle Earth trilogies. Despite an underwhelming response to the Hobbit series, the studio prefered to advertise the movie with his name. A stained reputation is better than no reputation at all, I guess, and virtually no one had ever heard of Rivers.

I saw interviews with a very tired looking Jackson, which could probably generate hardly any less enthusiasm in a potentially interested viewer. Little more than, “I liked the book, so I made a film out of it. If enough of you watch it, the studio may order another one. Thank you!” How could these clips be approved by the marketing department?  

I also noticed how everyone involved has been avoiding the “S-word”:  “Steampunk”. It’s very much in that genre but even Jackson said something like “It’s not really steampunk. It may have elements of steampunk, but it’s not a steampunk movie.” My feeling is “steampunk” has a poor reputation among movie studios, as too many movies of that genre have flopped hard in the past. Need I say more than Wild Wild West? The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and, to some extent, The Golden Compass, also show why studios distance themselves from this word.

I wonder if there might have been some studio meddling here, since this would probably have benefitted from being an hour or 30 minutes longer. More time to develop the characters and build a stronger emotional connection to them. But a 2-hour movie means more showings per day. A business decision, not necessary one that supported the storytelling!

Jim: Personally, I wonder when Peter Jackson is going to get to direct a narrative feature he wants to do? Rather than one forced on him by Guillermo Del Toro bailing, as with The Hobbit. His last such was The Lovely Bones, and that was a decade ago. I wonder if he’s “broken,” having gone over to documentaries, first about World War I and, next, The Beatles. Maybe he’s turning into Werner Herzog…

Anyway, Rivers’ background in effects seems obvious here, as the film feels a good deal more confident and on a former footing with the technical aspects than when the actors. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: James Cameron, to this day, seems to be the same, and he’s done very well for himself. However, Cameron’s first feature didn’t go down in history as one of the biggest flops of the year, and Piranha II: The Spawning also cost considerably less money than Mortal Engines. Is this the biggest loss in a directorial debut? I can’t think of many rivals.

However, unlike Dieter, I didn’t feel the pace of the film was too much of a problem, and think Rivers did a good job of keeping the various balls in the air. Would it have benefited from a greater running time? Perhaps, though I’m not sure economics plays much of a part, since two-hour movies seems to be the norm – going longer does not appear to pose any economic problems.. If you look at the top US box-office hits last year, the shortest in the top six was The Incredibles, and it still ran 118 minutes. The average was 133 minutes. I can’t honestly say that having one fewer screening of Engines per day feels like it would have made much difference.

Acting up

Hera Hilmar (what a name!) is much better as Hester Shaw than feared. The character could have become a parody of itself; my personal worry was that Hilmar would be too soft for the role. But that’s not the case: she gives a tragic character enough depth to be interesting, without overdoing it. The problem is a change from the book. There, her scar goes through half of her face, Hester having lost an eye and her nose is a mere stump. The disfigurement is why she constantly hides much of her face behind a red scarf. She has the scarf in the movie… but why? Film-Hester’s scars are hardly worth mentioning and don’t detract from Hilmar’s natural attractiveness. It’s kind of disrespectful to the original character and the audience.

On the other hand, Robert Sheehan, as Tom Natsworthy, seems to have been chosen mainly due to his big puppy dog eyes and general cuteness: I can easily see teen-girls going gaga over him. But, honestly, he appears a bit bland. Then it has to be said, the character was never especially interesting in the book to begin with, so once again criticism has to go back to the original author. The cyborg Shrike is played by Stephen Lang. While we rarely if ever see Lang’s “real” face, he is probably the most emotionally touching character in the movie. And he’s gone before we know it. Oh, movie, movie… what are you doing?

Weaving delivers his usual good villain performance here. However, the script has again decided to simplify things. In the book, Valentine is doing the bidding of his master, Mayor Magnus Chrome (played here by Patrick Malahide). Valentine is driven by fear he may lose the status he has carefully built as an outsider, and wants to secure his daughter Katherine’s safety. This gives the character at least some understandable motivations for his actions. Unfortunately, the movie ignores this completely: Valentine’s motivation appears to be little more than to show everyone he has the biggest gun of them all! Being evil for evil’s sake: it’s so passé…

Of particular interest to this site is cool Asian action-chick Anna Fang, played by stylish Korean actress/musician Jihae. She frees Tom and Hester from the slave traders and has a nice, almost classic duel with Weaving at the end. Fang comes across like the Steampunk-action-girl you’d like to find out more about… The film, however, has other plans. Though Philip Reeve’s new book in the universe, Night Flights, will fill that need, if you’re interested.

Jim: There’s no doubt, Hilmar is the engine which powers the film. Sheehan is blandness personified at an almost Twilight-like level, and there are almost no moments at which you are made to care for Tom. Indeed, he could have been excised from the film entirely, and it would have made little or no difference: this is Hester’s story, and she has a genuine character arc, something the “hero” isn’t given. The makers seem to realize this when it comes to the finale, as Tom is left on the sidelines, while Hester and Anna taking over. Perhaps they are the ones who should have been teamed up from the start?

I’d seen Jihae before, playing twin sisters in the Mars mini-series, but she makes for an excellent supporting character here. A spin-off franchise of her adventures and derring-do beckons. Er, or perhaps did beckon, before the main feature crashed and burned. However, I think in general actors tend to escape from bombs much better than those behind the camera. Even Tom Cruise has had his share of flops. Hopefully Hilmar will also be able to move on; Dieter will perhaps fight me over this, but I got a little Noomi Rapace vibe from her. Maybe it’s just the “Scandinavian actress” thing. That’s impressive enough in itself, considering English is not her first language.

I liked Weaving, though will always find it hard to see him without muttering “Mr. Anderson….” under my breath, ever time he speaks [which made parts of Lord of the Rings tricky to watch!]. I did understand Valentine’s motivations for what he does: he wants to ensure the survival of London, by any means necessary, and if that involves taking from others, so be it. I guess whether that inevitably makes him the “bad guy” may depend on your philosophical perspective, since has been (and continues to be) the basis of Western civilization. Which brings us nicely to…

A partly political broadcast

Dieter: There’s a degree of politically correct representation going on, with the “anti-tractionists” being multi-ethnic and diverse, while London – differently from today – being mainly Caucasian, with the exception of Colin Salmon as museum director Pomeroy. While I personally don’t mind that, it was quite obvious, but thankfully without directly blurting out some social justice message. And then – I think I’m starting to sound like a broken record – it’s the way it was in the book.

Jim. In contrast – perhaps due to not having read the book – I felt the film did contain unsubtle attempts at political commentary, with the West literally the bad guy here. It’s not just Thaddeus Valentine: when his weapon causes carnage in the East’s multicultural society and blasts a hole in the wall, the population of London is shown cheering wildly. It’s as subtle as showing 9/11 footage, then cutting to Muslims dancing in the streets. I also noted an odd announcement as the residents of Salzhaken are embarking into London: “Be aware, children may be temporarily separated from parents.” Hmm, Trump reference much? Yet ironically, the film works as an excellent advertisement for the merits of a good, strong wall, keeping out the foreign hordes who are seeking to plunder your region’s wealth. Oops…

In the end…

Jim: I’m reminded of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Kerry Conran’s 2004 film. Both were debuts, effects-heavy action fantasies with an aerial bias… and both proved box-office failures. You could even draw a line between Angelina Jolie’s Commander Franky Cook as an ancestor of Anna Fang. Sky Captain has become something of a cult item, so perhaps there’s hope for Engines. Though not as groundbreaking in terms of its FX, it does still have a strong sense of visual style. Rivers keeps the camera almost in perpetual motion, swooping around and through the scenes and characters.

It’s this aspect which is the most successful, the kind of film I can see myself picking up on Blu-Ray eventually (albeit at the $5.99 level!), for the spectacle. While the setting needs more explanation, as a physical entity, there are no such shortcomings, and it does work nicely as cinematic eye-candy. However, there are too many problems elsewhere, from a poor choice of hero through a forgettable soundtrack [really, techno for steampunk?], for this to be regarded as an all-round success. That said, nor did it deserve to fail so spectacularly, and deserves praise for at least offering something different in style and setting – if not story.

Dieter: As a large-budget entertainment blockbuster, this delivers the required spectacle, visuals and big bangs, and there’s hardly anything technical you could complain about. The problem is a script which freely copies well-known tropes, elements and plots that we have seen far too often in similar blockbusters. This is indeed a negative, unless you are a teen, haven’t seen many of these movies and don’t know Star Wars! The screenplay also wasn’t able to adapt the book intelligently enough. While it managed to capture the basic plot adequately, not leaving anything essential out, I must say a lot of the decisions didn’t just simplify the story, they dumbed it down. I’m sorry to say, the team that brought us Lord of the Rings could have used a hand there.

The actors mostly give competent to good performances. It’s not their fault if the characters are bland, and some dialogue is as flat as if a rolling city drove over it!  I particularly “bought” Hera Hilmar in her role. It’s only her second big film, after Inferno, and I would like to see her, as well as Jihae, again. Sadly, maybe that chance has gone. Certainly, steampunk still awaits its magnum opus. This could have been it. While it isn’t, Mortal Engines is still much better than previous attempts in this specific sub-genre.

This rolling city epic disappoints, because I feel it could have been and should have been better. However, if you are just here for some big colourful loud screen spectacle you could fare much worse. But then, better, too. At least Hester had a very realistic view on life at the end of the book: “You aren’t a hero, and I’m not beautiful, and we probably won’t live happily ever after. But we’re alive, and together, and we’re going to be all right.”

Dir: Christian Rivers
Star: Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving, Jihae

Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

Spoiler warning. I will be discussing parts of the novel’s story as well as things that may – or may not – go on in the movie adaptation.

Background & backstory

When former illustrator Philip Reeve’s first book, Mortal Engines, was released in 2001, he couldn’t have known it would be that successful. Coming out amidst the Harry Potter craze and Lord of the Rings movies, the book market had started to focus on young adult novels, very often with fantasy or SF-themed plots, resulting in a sharp increase in their sales. For a time that worked very well: I like to see how these genres, usually only occupying a little niche in bookshops, were getting their own big areas, shelf over shelf filled with books of this sort. However, I also saw traditional books for boys and girls, well-liked evergreen children’s classics for decades like Pippi Longstocking, The Robber Hotzenplotz and the books of Michael Ende, more and more pushed out by the Harry Potter type. That personally hurt me a bit as I grew up with all these classics.

But things have changed. Traditional book shops seem to have become a thing of the past, with more and more people seeming to order books online. Books themselves seem to have become an oddity, with every second person reading e-books on their Kindle and the young adult genre seems to be dead now. Few of the many authors walking in Joanne K. Rowling’s footsteps were able to compete with her enormous success. Though the YA genre would enjoy other successes such as The Hunger Games or Twilight, this genre really seems to have seen its day. Even in the cinemas, many attempts flopped. Percy Jackson never became a franchise; Divergent ended before its final part; and did anyone really watch the last movie in the Maze Runner series?

While some numbers give cause for concern, such as a drop in book sales in  the last four years, there is also positive news as classic children books seem to have made a comeback, in film form. German cinemas enjoyed new movies based on The Little Witch and The Little Ghost (Otfried Preußler), Hannie & Nanni and the Famous Five (Enid Blyton), The Boys from Castle Horror Rock (Oliver Hassencamp) and Jim Knopf (Michael Ende). A new Robber Hotzenplotz book has also come out, 45 years after the last one – and 4 years after author Otfried Preußler’s death!

But I digress. ;-)

Reeve’s book came out in the midst of the YA craze and was received very well. It obviously proved popular enough that the author would follow this success with 3 sequels, 4 prequel novels, an illustrated guide and a short novella. Film-maker Peter Jackson had been interested in the series since 2008. But the idea of enormous cities rolling overland was not translatable to the big screen with then-available CGI. Add his own sudden involvement with the Hobbit movies (originally to be directed by Guillermo del Toro), and the idea stalled. Now, it seems these hurdles have been cleared, and though Jackson left directing to his prodigy and co-worker for 26 years, Christian Rivers, we finally saw a movie version of the first book in December.

But what are these books – specifically, the first – about?

Summary

Reeve invented in his first book a rich colourful world which plays far, far in the future but feels definitely retro. Aficionados know this kind of genre which often is labelled “steampunk” – or in this case even “dieselpunk”. But Reeve, as well as Jackson and Rivers in recent interviews, stress it’s not quite that, but rather incorporates elements of steampunk as well as of post-apocalyptic science-fiction with the Young Adult approach of something like let’s say… Harry Potter. It should be also noted that the idea of “cities on wheels” had already been used before in Edgar Rice Burrough’s “John Carter of Mars” series.

In the book, the world has been devastated by a terrible conflict, called the “Sixty Minute War”, thousands of years ago. It destroyed most of the ecology of the earth: earthquakes and volcano eruptions were caused by the aftermath of that war. Traditional knowledge about our world, our history and our technology has been lost. New knowledge has replaced it, that has changed the way people live in this post-apocalyptic world.

In order to survive, people have found a way to put entire cities and towns on wheels. These now roll over land and through dried-out seas, in order to capture and “devour” other cities, whose parts and elements are used to fuel their own city and replenish resources. The captured inhabitants of those cities may be integrated into their captor’s society or be sold as slaves. Transport to or discovery of other cities is managed via fast airships.

The story revolves around young orphan Tom Natsworthy, third assistant in the Guild of Historians, who works in a museum. Things seem to be going fine for Tom and his dreams of a better life, as he meets Thaddeus Valentine, a key figure in the city of London. Valentine seems very positive towards Tom, and his daughter Katherine seems to take a liking to him. At least, until a girl with a scarf across her disfigured face tries to kill Valentine. Her attempt is thwarted by Tom, though he can’t prevent her from falling into a waste chute during the subsequent chase. She had just revealed her name to him as Hester Shaw, information which proves so embarrassing for Valentine, he throws Tom right behind her.

That is just the beginning. Out of need, Tom joins the young woman in order to get back to London. They experience a series of adventures on their journey involving a city in the air, pirates, cool aviatrix Anna Fang, a big city not on wheels but hiding behind a big wall, and a forgotten weapon of mass destruction called “Medusa” from the Sixty Minute War. Shocking revelations are… ahem… revealed to the characters and readers, resulting in a finale that leaves no eye dry, and with a death toll that would have Game of Thrones nodding in approval.

I don’t think Reeve planned this book to become the first in a series, or he wouldn’t have written such a definitive ending. I suspect book two, which I haven’t read, will probably have to kind of “re-start” the series. But it’s perhaps fortunate he did, for as we say in Germany, it means he’s really making “nails with heads”. That means he’s not above making tough decisions, which readers may not expect (or even approve of, had they known beforehand). As far as I’ve heard that’s something that he stays true to, for the remainder of the series.

Style & themes

Reeve writes in a very fluent and “readable” style. He gives descriptions where they are needed but doesn’t exaggerate them. It’s definitely the writing style you expect in a YA novel (this is not meant to be negative at all). Very often, he lets you into what his characters are feeling or thinking, without the characters articulating their thoughts or emotions directly. Sometimes I wish he would be a bit more direct, but then I think Reeve believes in the old “actions speak louder than words” approach, and has his characters give verbal explanations only where he deems them necessary.

The story is told from different perspectives, Mainly it alternates between Tom and Katherine, so that one chapter describes Tom’s and Hester’s exploits and the next reveals what Katherine and her tame wolf  discover. These are interspersed with chapters from other perspectives and sometimes longer descriptive passages, mostly about the cities. A nice trick Reeve plays, is often having a chapter end with a little climax or “Aha!”-moment. It leaves the reader wanting to know what happens next – only to have another person’s story in the next chapter. This is an effective storytelling technique to keep your reader’s interest awake.

Principally, my feeling is that in this first book Reeve is still “trying”, but the rich- and inventiveness of his fictive world is already there. He seems to be “finding his voice,” and according to others who have read his follow-up books he has succeeded better in these. The basic idea of cities on wheels that “eat” other cities is intriguing, and that image must probably also have been what may have captured Peter Jackson’s imagination.

Whether there is a deeper meaning behind the book’s story is left to the reader’s own interpretation. Though without much effort I can see a couple of possibilities. Isn’t there right now a “culture war” happening, with different cultures battling it out over dominating each other? And aren’t many employees forced, day in and out, to travel to locations far from their respective homes for work? Where is your real home if you are constantly being asked to be “flexible”?

A couple of years ago, I was in Brighton where people explained to me that this is actually “Brighton & Hove” but the two united into one over time. While for the tourist it presents itself as one city, the inhabitants still can tell you exactly where Brighton ends and Hove begins – a very good example of a “real” city “devouring” another city. I’m not saying Reeve may have intended any of these associations. Maybe he just saw The Spy Who Loved Me with a big ship swallowing submarines! Interestingly, the main villain is London’s Lord Mayor Magnus Crome, and his last words are: “I just wanted to make London strong!” I couldn’t help reading the line as “I just wanted to make London great again!” While that’s my own mind playing practical jokes, considering the book was written 17 years ago, maybe it has acquired contemporary resonance?

A recurring motif of the novel seems to be that things don’t necessarily turn out as planned. In the beginning, Tom dreams of making a career, and in his day-dreams experiences an adventure with him as the hero and a beautiful girl at his side. Instead, he finds himself literally tossed out of his comfort zone by his almost-mentor, his hopes having dissolved into dust within a moment. He’s stranded in the outside world with a disfigured girl on his side, who is far from being nice or friendly (at least at first).

Similarly, Thaddeus has big plans and understandable motivations, having made a career after acquiring devastating ancient technology by killing Hester’s parents. He ends up pressured by Crome, and all of his hopes go down the drain at the end of the story. Valentine may be a villain but he’s more a fallen hero – Reeves wins extra points with me for not falling into the trap of creating simple “good” and “evil” characters. You may even feel some pity for Valentine as Hester does at the end when she decides to spare his life. We’ll see how the movie will handle these aspects of the novel!

Again and again, Tom and Hester have to counter new problems and challenges on their way back to London. Reeve may be saying that you can make a difference and change things for the better, despite being in an unfortunate position, by working hard to overcome one’s personal hurdles. To me, it’s a very positive message that reminds me of the basic tenor in my preferred YA series The Wardstone Chronicles by Joseph Delaney.

The girls

I almost forgot about the girls – though I’m not really sure if I would call this a GWG book, since the main protagonist in this volume is definitely male. First, there’s Hester Shaw, the young, disfigured woman out for revenge. Though she may be the most prominent overall character of the series, she isn’t so in this book: it’s Tom. I’ve heard that the second book is told from her perspective, with her being center-stage, while book 3 and 4 are focused on her and Tom’s daughter, Wren. This reminds me of some other literary characters: for example, Lisbeth Salander was a supporting character in the first Millenium novel, as was Hannibal Lector in Red Dragon.

Here she’s mainly a supporting character. After her initial attack on Valentine, which she survives badly wounded, Hester doesn’t do much for the next 100 pages and is mainly half-carried around by Tom. He has the biggest character development, finally deciding to help the “anti-tractionist”, those who are against the moving cities and live behind the walls of Batmunkh Gompa. Still, it’s a strange, unique character Reeve has created: Hester isn’t really sympathetic at first sight and not a beauty on any sight, but the reader slowly warms up to her. Her life-story hasn’t been a beautiful one, she has similarly “fallen out of paradise” like Tom, but doesn’t show much empathy for him.

Her disfigured face leaves her far from a beauty queen; maybe this was Reeve’s intention, to point at the fact that we too often judge just by that what we see on the surface than what’s inside. In contrast, Valentine who comes across as likable at first and is described as an honorable, remarkable man – only to try to murder Tom moments later. What I find strange is that obviously in the promotion of the movie, Hester is in the front of the marketing material (as in the movie tie-in version of the book above), and the powers that be have definitely dialed back on her ugliness. This makes little sense. The original idea seems to have been it was this hideous scar which made Hester the tough, harsh character she is. In the trailer, the actress playing her is a very beautiful young woman with two eyes, an unharmed nose and some, well… let’s call them scratches on her face which do not really require to be hidden. It feels a betrayal of the original intent for this character.

Maybe it’s enough that the villain killed your Mom. But why, then, put a scarf around that girl’s face and advertise it with, “Some scars never heal”? Some fans have already voiced their disapproval of what’s typical for Hollywood. Remember how Brienne of Tarth was so much more “eye-friendly” in the Game of Thrones TV series than the books? They see that disfigurement making a huge statement: not every female character has to be a typical beauty to be a heroine (although Hester probably falls more in the category of anti-heroine) and there even existed an online petition with the intention to change it. This worked as well as the one to replace Ben Affleck as Batman before the production of Batman vs. Superman.

I personally think it takes quite a bit away, from a character who always wears that red scarf when depicted on a book cover. There are also fan drawings and paintings online that show how Hester could have looked with her terrible scar, without appearing downright nightmarish. I can’t help but suspect the studio (maybe Jackson, Rivers or the make-up department) realized that they have a very cool character on their hands – then lacked the conviction to go with it, and watered the character’s appearance down. Just my 2 cents.

Another important character is Katherine Valentine. She is a good person, regrets the presumed death of Tom whom she liked, and with the help of a young engineer and her own tame wolf “Dog”, slowly discovers the big secret of her father’s and Magnus Crome’s secret plans. She definitely plays a bigger, more active role in this book than Hester. Actually, I’m astonished that she is not the poster-girl for the up-coming movie, or even obviously in the trailer, as she does really much more than Hester Shaw, though the fails in the end.

Finally, there is Asian aviatrix Anna Fang (known as “Feng Hua” to her air collegues). She is working for the “anti-traction league” and helps Tom and Hester more than once. She has a nice sword fight with Valentine at the end, but unfortunately loses to him. Obviously Reeves regretted that decision later. I read that when he met the actress who plays Fang in the movie Korean singer Jihae), it inspired him to write a book of short stories all about her character, published under the title Mortal Engines 05: Night Flights.

Conclusion

Mortal Engines is a very readable YA novel, which can also be read by grown-ups without any problems. It’s fast, action-paced and never gets boring, though it could have had some more work done in the character depiction of Hester. Reeve creates a rich, fascinating and colourful fantasy world with some good surprising “A-ha!”-moments and doesn’t make life easy for his protagonists. He doesn’t flincg from describing grisly situations, physical battles or blood, and surprises his readers with outcomes for his characters you wouldn’t necessarily expect. I never regretted having bought this book, without any specific expectations. I might even be interested in buying book 2, which some people – including Peter Jackson – claim to be better than the first.

Author: Philip Reeves
Publisher: Scholastic Inc., available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 4 in the Mortal Engines series.

Alita: Battle Angel

  By

★★★★
“Mechanical Pixie Dream Girl.”

Depending on your definition, this is perhaps the most expensive action-heroine film of all time, estimated at more than $200 million before tax incentives. Given the fate of live-action adaptations of manga in the West, most recently Ghost in the Shell, this was always going to be a risky investment, even with the name of James Cameron, the most successful movie-maker in history, attached as a producer. At one point, people were predicting a bomb of Mortal Engines size. While Alita seems to have escaped that fate, it’s going to have to do very well in both China and Japan, the two remaining territories, if it’s to turn any kind of profit, never mind start a franchise.

That’s a shame, because this is a solid, well-made piece of science-fiction, which does a particularly good job of creating a massive, epic world on the cinema screen. Rodriguez has been squeezing every penny out of his budgets since El Mariachi, and while there may not be much apparent overlap between Alita with Shark Boy and Lava Girl, the latter franchise was excellent training for RR in meshing computer graphics with actors. Sin City also laid similar groundwork, and helped set up the director with the chance to go big or go home. And there’s no doubt: Rodriguez went big. This was my first cinema trip of 2019, and was fully justified.

Having recently read the original manga, I was struck by how faithful the film was to most aspects. Right from the get-go, with Doc Ido (Waltz) finding the shattered remains of Alita (Salazar) on the scrap-heap below Zalem, there were shots which could have been story-boarded by the graphic novel. [Again, something Rodriguez also did in Sin City] Ido, in particular, looks exactly like I imagined him, and the same goes for Vector (Mahershala Ali), the shady power behind the scenes in Iron City, as well as Zapan and the rest of the bounty hunters.

The story is generally quite faithful, too. After her rescue, Alita tries to recover her past memories, becomes a bounty-hunter, falls in love with human boy Hugo (Johnson), takes up the brutal sport of Motorball, and experiences personal tragedy. However, the order of the events is shifted: in the manga, the tragedy is what spurs her entry into the Motorball arena. The film also adds Ido’s ex-wife, Chiren (Connolly), a character who was not in the comics, though does appear in the OVA. Here, they had a disabled daughter named Alita, who was killed by one of Ido’s Motorball goons. It’s a rather clunky subplot, which doesn’t add particularly much, beyond explaining from where Alita v2.0’s body came.

There has been much debate over Alita’s eyes, which have been CGI-increased in size to an extent rarely if ever seen in a live-action film. Of course, she’s a cyborg, so whatever. However, it is still something of a distraction, even though it appears they’ve been toned-down in size from early trailers, where it appeared her eyeballs would have occupied most of her brain’s frontal lobe. The eyes are one of the hardest things to get right with computer graphics, and when it isn’t, the results can be horrible, as with the resurrected Peter Cushing in Rogue One. This is better, and at some moments does enhance things, basically acting as a megaphone for Alita’s feelings. However, it also plays into the film’s main weakness: an apparent lack of genuine emotion. I’ll circle back to that a bit later.

As a spectacle, this is grand, offering sweeping vistas of a future world, densely populated with people, things and those in between. As an action movie, it works pretty well too. The two best set-pieces are the bar-brawl where newly-registered bounty hunter Alita proves her worth to her colleagues, and the Motorball game, where everyone else taking part cares only about killing Alita. There’s a palpable sense of progression in her skills over the course of the film. Initially, she’s clearly raw and unfocused, but after she is paired with her “berserker” body… [Inevitably, it has been the subject of PC whining, about it looking ‘too feminine’] Hoo-boy. By the end, she’s a weapon on mass destruction, regardless of the opponent’s size.

And speaking of the end, one frequently-heard bit of criticism is that the ending is too “open,” apparently fishing for a sequel. I can’t say I felt that way at all. There’s certainly scope for more movies, apparently involving Alita going after the mysterious Nova. Yet the main thread of the film, involving Alita and Hugo, is definitively wrapped up. In comparison, say, to Marvel films, which almost inevitably have an in- or post-credit sequence blatantly signposting the next film, this felt conclusive. While there is perhaps need for a greater sense of escalation, or a bigger climax (that Motorball battle is trivial in its consequences), I’m largely baffled by complaints about the “lack of a genuine ending.”

As mentioned above, a more significant issue is that I hardly “felt” anything for any of the characters. Ido – stuck between paternal instincts of protection and a desire to allow Alita self-determination – perhaps came the closest. The relationship between Alita and Hugo is supposed to provide the film’s emotional engine. But between the former’s CGI make-up and the latter’s generic blandness, it doesn’t make much of a dent. There’s a scene where she literally tears out her heart and gives it to him: everyone, including the film itself, seems faintly embarrassed by the whole incident. Worse still – minor spoiler – the movie even goes so far as to kill a dog, without generating more than a blip of impact. Somewhere, John Wick shakes his head, sadly.

I was initially concerned about the PG-13 rating – not least because the first trailer before the film was for UglyDolls [an animated movie “about acceptance, diversity, joy and friendship” according to its site]. I needn’t have been: this is more From Dusk Till Dawn Robert Rodriguez than the Spy Kids version, with a gleeful approach to the semi-mechanized carnage. For I think it helps on the censorship front, that most of the carnage in inflicted on cyborgs, who are largely able to take a licking and keep on ticking. The manga was heavily into black market spine-ripping; here, it’s mostly limbs, which is slightly more kid-friendly, I guess.

In the end, this is just about everything for which I could have hoped. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of the artistic choices, the positives greatly outweigh the weaknesses. Although this is a low bar (hello, Speed Racer), it’s certainly the best manga/anime adaptation to come out of Hollywood. It’s a world I’d love to see explored further: whether Rodriguez and crew get the chance to do so or not, will remain in doubt until the final box-office figures arrive. Fingers crossed.

Dir: Robert Rodriguez
Star: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Keean Johnson, Jennifer Connelly

Sanyare: The Last Descendant, by Megan Haskell

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

Nuriel Lhethannien, known as Rie, is an orphan human in a multi-verse, populated by elves, vampires known as sidhes, trolls and a host of other magic creatures. She has a job as a messenger for King Othin, the ruler of the Upper Realm. But when she’s attacked by assassins from the Shadow Realm, she’s in deep trouble. For such is the enmity between the realms, that Othin decreed, “Anyone in contact with the Shadow Realm, in any way, would be executed.” To save her own life, Rie has to become even more of an outlaw, and journey down below, seeking to find the truth about who attacked her and why.

The Shadow Realm is no more keen on Upper Realmers, and Rie’s boss, Rolimdornoron, demands she be arrested and returned for punishment. Fortunately, Rie’s heritage provides some unexpected assistance, along with the combat training given by her foster father, the head of Othin’s guard. She’s also helped by Prince Daenor, who has issues of his own to handle in the intrigues of the Shadow Realm court. Oh, and a small flock of highly carnivorous pixies.

It’s a solid read, which might have benefited from slightly more fighting and less talk. My opinion there is likely skewed by the lack of any real climax in that department – perhaps a result of this being the opening volume. Action-wise, the book peaks about 40% in, when Rie and Daenor have to battle their way past the guards of a master smith who made the weapons used to attack the heroine. And there are a lot of guards. It’s an especially good sequence; I was waiting for anything similar to show up the rest of the way, and was disappointed. Things instead ended in something closer to a royal courtroom, before a reveal which I found a bit too obvious. Let’s say, the title alone is a bit of a giveaway to the fact that Rie’s “orphan” status is not quite what it seems.

The political machinations are well-handled, dancing on the fine line between complex and convoluted, and I appreciated the way Rie drags herself up by her own boot-straps, despite humans being seen as “second-class citizens” by many elves. The romantic feelings she has for Daenor are also somewhat conspicuous, yet they manage to avoid getting in the way of the story – it helps they’re largely unrequited, at least, in this section [score one for opening volumes, yay!]. I reached the end somewhat interested in seeing where things go, though likely not quite enough to justify any immediate further purchase. With her skills apparently continuing to blossom, and some new friends (and relations) in very high places, there hasn’t been enough sense of a threat to Rie established to leave me interested in finding out more. I don’t feel as if my time was wasted, however.

Author: Megan Haskell
Publisher: Trabuco Ridge Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 4 in the Sanyare Chronicles series.

The Stolen

  By

★★
“98 minutes robbed from my life.”

Rarely has such promise been so spectacularly and vigorously squandered. For this starts well enough. In 19th century New Zealand, English ex-pat Charlotte (Eve) is settling into a new life with her husband and newborn child. This is upturned when a midnight raid leaves her husband dead and the baby kidnapped. Months later, after everyone else has moved on, she gets a ransom demand in the mail, and she tracks its source to Goldtown. This remote outpost is truly an Antipodean version of the Wild West, a rough-edged mining town run by Joshua McCullen (Davenport). Braving all manner of threats – not least, that the only other women there are prostitutes – Charlotte makes the perilous journey to the frontier settlement in search of her son.

So far, so good. The landscapes and photography on the way there are gorgeous, yet threatening, and Charlotte is built up nicely, possessing a strength and inner steel which belies her “English rose” appearance. Both her late husband, and the guide who accompanies Charlotte (also bringing to Goldtown a batch of fresh hookers!), have laid the groundwork, both theoretical and practical, for her to learn the use of firearms, that great equalizer of force. The foundations were apparently being created for her to put her training to good use, when she finds out what happened to her child.

Then she arrives in Goldtown and the film goes to hell in a hand-basket, almost as soon as Riff Raff from Rocky Horror (O’Brien) shows up to portray the manager of the local brothel, sporting an accent of entirely indeterminable origin. For a good chunk, Charlotte appears to forget entirely what the purpose of her trip is. Even when she remembers, her investigative approach initially consists of little more than roaming the town, yelling at miners about her minor. When the truth about who is behind the abduction is revealed, it doesn’t make much sense: the motive for their acts, in particular, is more “it needed to happen because film,” rather than anything springing organically from the nature of their character.

Eve does makes for a heroine with potential. There’s something of the young Nicole Kidman about her, and it’s a good character arc for Charlotte. She transforms from a passive lady of the manor, to someone forced to sleep in a dormitory with a bunch of whores (the most acidic of whom, the severely mis-named Honey, is played by the film’s writer, Emily Corcoran), and fend off men who, somewhat understandably, believe she is also pay-to-play. However, the film likely reveals the culprit too soon: doing so eliminates what little sense of suspense present, and it’s not hard to guess how things will develop thereafter.

Such speculation will likely be accurate, and the film does at least deliver the expected payoff at the end, in the form of an armed confrontation between Charlotte and the kidnapper. By that point, most viewers will likely have given up caring much, beyond being reminded of New Zealand’s picturesque qualities.

Dir: Niall Johnson
Star: Alice Eve, Jack Davenport, Richard O’Brien, Graham McTavish

Wonder Woman (2009)

  By

★★★½
“A little short of truly Wonder-ful.”

Often forgotten in the critical acclaim for the live-action feature, is the animated film released by Warner Brothers in 2009. It wasn’t an enormous hit – plans for a sequel were scrapped due to its slow sales – but is worth a revisit in the the wake of Gal Gadot’s subsequent portrayal. There are some strong overlaps in the two films’ plots: in both, the crash-landing of pilot Steve Trevor (Fillion) kicks off the Amazons’ re-connection to mortal mankind, and Ares (Molina) is the common villain.

The most obvious difference is the time-frame; rather than the middle of World War I, this takes place in the present day. Additionally, Ares is initially in Amazon custody, escaping with the help of Persephone, an Amazon he has seduced to his side. Diana (Russell) is tasked with re-capturing the god before he can bring about  Zeus’s first goal is to remove the bracers, put on him by Zeus, which limit his powers. They can only be removed by another god, and he seeks the help of his uncle, god of the underworld Hades (Oliver Platt). That done, he raises an army, including the Amazonian dead, and attacks Washington, which causes the President to launch a nuke at Themyscira, believing it to be behind the attack. It’s up to Diana to stop Zeus, and to Steve to stop the missile.

There are chunks of this which are really good, not least the action. Those scenes had to be trimmed down to avoid an R-rating (rumblings of that version getting a release, have yet to be proven true), and what remains is beautifully animated, yet brutal at the same time. This perhaps reaches its peak with the battle through Manhattan between Diana and Ares’s warrior-son, Deimos (below), which for my money is the equal of anything in the live-action film. The relationship between Steve and Diana is another strong suit, helped by strong voice-work from both actors. I think the contemporary setting helps, too, avoiding the rather obvious gender politics angle shoehorned into the more recent film, in favour of more subtle consideration of such points [I was impressed that even the traitor Amazon is given a philosophical motive for her betrayal, and it offers pause for thought].

However, there are other aspects which seem very poorly thought-out. After defeating Deimos, who commits suicide rather than reveal anything, Diana gets a medallion off the corpse. Next scene, they’re sneaking into Ares’s lair. Uh, what? It feels almost as if there was a chunk missing, a feeling enhanced by the relatively terse 75-minute running time. Perhaps this also explained the whole “invisible jet” thing – something wisely abandoned entirely by the live-action film, since it never made much sense. Here, it shows up with no explanation, later firing invisible missiles.

The final battle also relies upon too much contrivance (oh, look: someone pulls a spell out of thin air to free the Amazonian zombies), though at least Ares here proves a worthy adversary, unlike in the live-action film, where he was close to the weakest link. Still, even if it’s perhaps aimed at a younger audience than your humble author, and was missing the sense of awe generated by Gal Gadot’s sword-swinging, this was entertaining and well-made. Worth a look.

Dir: Lauren Montgomery
Star (voice): Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Alfred Molina, Rosario Dawson

Intensive Care

  By

★★½
“Nightmare nurse.”

I’m generally an easy-going guy with regard to plots in my action heroine films. Give me adequate amounts of ass-kicking and I’ll happily overlook most weaknesses in the storyline. I mention this, to stress I’m not a nitpicky kind of reviewer, who requires an Aristotlean level of logic from their movies. So when I say, there are major problems with the scripting here… There are MAJOR problems with the scripting here.

Alex (Macken) is a nurse, hired as a caregiver to the terminally-ill Claire (Easterbrook), when Claire’s only living relative, grandson Seth (Sizemore), turns up. He’s desperate to get into granny’s good graces and get his inheritance, because he is in deep debt to some dangerous people. Claire is not fooled at all by this sudden show of family feeling, and tells Seth where to go. He teams up with a pair of local hoodlums to rob the safe where grandma keeps her money – only to discover that Alex is far from the innocent caregiver she seems, and has a very particular set of skills. Skills she has acquired over a very long career. Skills that make her a nightmare for people like Seth and his crew.

This comes as absolutely no surprise to the audience, because of an opening sequence showing these skills on view in a gym before she heads off to take up her position. There’s hints of some defining experience in the Philippines – never expanded on, so you wonder why they bother. It would likely have been more fun if her talents had come as much as a surprise to the audience as the home invaders. The main problem, however, is the idiocy of everyone involved, which generates plot holes so gaping, you could sail an oil-tanker through them. Sideways.

Most obviously, we see early on how ruthless and vicious Seth’s accomplices are, killing a prostitute. Given this, there is absolutely no need for them to keep the captured Alex alive: she is in no way needed to help them open the safe. Yet, inexplicably, they do so, even after she learns their names and sees their faces. And repeatedly, both sides fail to press home an advantage when they get the jump on the opposition, preferring to exchange non-witty banter. This is especially unforgivable for Alex, who is supposedly some kind of ex-special forces reconnaissance type, someone whom you’d think would have precisely zero qualms about terminating an obvious, lethal threat, given the chance. And please do not ask me about the scene where Alex takes a bath… in her bra and panties. I hooted loudly about that.

It’s a shame, because Macken is rather good, whom I’d like to see more of (and no, not in the bra and panties sense…). If you’re a WWE fan, there’s something of the A.J. Lee about her, and the actual action sequences are well enough handled. She had a supporting role in Raze, so clearly knows her way around a fist. Indeed, this feels a little bit like an early entry in the career of Zoë Bell, back when she appeared in things that weren’t necessarily worthy of her talents. Hopefully, Macken’s career trajectory will improve similarly, to films capable of meeting even my low threshold for plot logic.

Dir: Jared Bentley
Star: Tara Macken, Kevin Sizemore, Jose Rosete, Leslie Easterbrook

Split Lip

  By

★★★
“Split decision”

Definitely a mixed bag in this independent work about an assassin on the run from her employers after she botches a contract. Seay is thoroughly compelling as Set, proving that less can sometimes be more when it comes to dialogue. She’s a woman of few words, yet the strength of her emotions still comes through in her performance. I think it’s the eyes. Unfortunately, the makers appear not to have had enough confidence to let her silence stand on its own. Instead, they fill the gap with the inane burblings of Samuel (Laballe), a young man who sees Seay, and decides she’s a battered woman in need of rescue.  He quickly discovers that isn’t the case, as she ends up rescuing him from one of the killers sent on her trail. However, his sister Dana (Cné) is unimpressed with her brother’s new friend, and turns Set in to her boss, Karlton (Brown).

There’s some nice stuff floating around the fringes as well. In most action films, the hero or heroine takes little more than cosmetic damage over the course of proceedings. That isn’t the case here: every encounter leaves Set more banged up, with the titular injury being just the start. The make-up department has a field day, shall we say. I also liked the occasionally chivalrous conduct and hierarchical structure of the assassins’ “guild”, with its different factions and approaches. In his opening monologue, for instance, Karlton makes clear that the services in which he specializes. are all about getting up close, personal and messy – “What we have to offer, is a message.” And, of course, being shot partly here in Phoenix is always a plus for me, though there’s not much in the way of local atmosphere to speak of.

Yet there are just as many problems, not limited to my strong desire to strangle Samuel every time he opened his mouth. In particular, Set’s actions largely seem illogical, and occur only because they are necessary to the plot e.g. staying in the same hotel room after her location has been discovered. Right from the start, it’s clear the only possible resolution involves either her death or tidying up the mess she created. Running off to Phoenix makes no sense in either direction – especially when her destination is at the suggestion of her boss, who makes no attempt at concealing his intention to have her hunted down. Only after an hour and twenty minutes and several entirely unnecessary tanks of fuel, does our heroine finally do, what made obvious sense from the very beginning.

The action is plentiful and quite well-staged, with the general absence of guns (save for an Indiana Jones-like moment near the end) making sense, given Carlton’s apparent distaste for them. Credit to Seay for doing her own stunts, and everyone else for making it look like she knows what’s she’s doing with her fists, despite a lack of size that becomes something of a running-joke. All told, this is a decent and worthy indie effort, which held our interest – though one undeniably in need of a better script.

Dir: Christopher Sheffield
Star: Dorée Seay, Chris Labadie, Maryam Cné, Dejean Brown

Widows

  By

★★★½
“Widows piqued.”

This is based on a TV series from Britain, which ran for two seasons in the eighties – I’ve seen it, but for some reason never got round to writing about it. The show would have been right in our wheelhouse, being written by Lynda LaPlante, who also created Prime Suspect. This version transplants the action from London to Chicago, and retains the basis story at its core. When their husbands die in connection with an attempted armed robbery, the wives of the late participants decide to take up the mantle of criminal enterprise, using a dossier of plans left behind. However, the motive is different here. The money stolen, and subsequently destroyed, belonged to crime boss Jamal Manning, who demands Veronica Rawlings (Davis), wife of the robbers’ leader, repay it back. All two million dollars of it.

It ups the ante compared to the British version: there, it was largely a desire by Mrs. Rawlins, simply to follow in her husband’s footsteps. It probably makes Veronica more sympathetic, though she’s not quite as hard-ass as Dolly was, across the pond. Less effective is the desire to add various political and social subtexts to things. For Manning is standing for office in a local election, seeking to disrupt things by going up against Jack Mulligan (Farrell), the scion of a long-standing dynasty. While it turns out both the original robbery and Veronica’s planned crime play into this power struggle, it does divert from the main story. And don’t even get me started on the Rawlings’ son having been killed by the police, an entirely pointless thread. [Except when shooting people, the cops here are notable by their absence] With considerably less time available than in the original, which ran for six, hour-long episodes, this is problematic.

It’s especially so when it comes to depicting the rest of the widows beyond Veronica, who are given scant attention in term of their characters. This is a shame, especially in the case of Alice Gunner (Debicki). The actress cuts a striking figure, not least because she’s 6’2″ – or one inch shorter than Brienne of Tarth. :) Rodriguez is similarly wasted, in a role that doesn’t make much use of her presence. Fortunately, Davis is up to the task, and is just as impressive as she was in Lila & Eve. [Though despite some efforts, Chris still hasn’t got me to watch Davis in How to Get Away With Murder!]

Falling therefore into the category of good, rather than great, it would perhaps have been better to copy the British structure and make this a mini-series – though does anyone still make those any more? Shonda Rimes is, perhaps, the contemporary American version of LaPlante, and the creator of HtGAWM would have seemed an ideal person to do such an adaptation justice. Water under the bridge, however, and if you can overlook the occasionally over-earnest wokeness on display, this is still solid enough, anchored perfectly well by Davis’s fibe performance.

Dir: Steve McQueen
Star: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Colin Farrell

Maggie for Hire, by Kate Danley

  By

Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

Maggie McKay is an inhabitant of two overlapping worlds, courtesy of her genetics and upbringing being a little bit from both. Her father was from the “Other Side,” but her mother was from Earth, and they lived here until Maggie’s awakening talents of her own necessitated a quick departure back to the O.S. She still operates mostly in this realm, hunting down and dispatching the nastier denizens who sneak across: vampires, ghouls, werewolves, etc. This everyday work gets escalated, when she discovers her previously unknown (and not very nice) uncle, Ulrich, has teamed up with a vampire clan, to acquire a pair of artifacts which control portals between the sides, and also allow the vamps to walk in daylight. Unchecked, this could lead to chaos, and it’s up to Maggie and her elf sidekick, Killian, to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Blandly generic urban fantasy, it’s the kind of book I finished reading on Friday, and am struggling to remember much about on Monday. This is not to say it’s bad, and going by the fact that this series has reached 10 novels (not including a trio of holiday specials, with titles like My Maggie Valentine), there’s clearly a market for this kind of non-threatening light action. It just isn’t anywhere near me. It feels as if the writer tossed a hundred other urban fantasy novels into a blender, and poured the resulting smooth, pastel pink concoction directly onto her own pages. For there are hardly any elements here which I haven’t read, probably about a hundred times before. From the world-threatening villain, all the way through to the unresolved sexual tension with the devastatingly attractive (aren’t the partners always?) Killian. Yawn…

It’s all unrepentantly old-school, e.g. the vampires can’t come in to a building unless they have first been invited. Which is fine, except when Danley has Maggie and Killian chased by the bloodsuckers into a motel, where… Well, absolutely nothing happens, because the vampires can only hang around outside, before eventually getting bored and drifting off towards dawn. It’s an entirely pointless incident, and does nothing except bring home how crappy “traditional” vampires are as antagonists. There are good reasons most incarnations of them beef up the threat level considerably. The whole “portal” thing is also kinda confusing and executed somewhat sloppily: Maggie seems to be able to open them up at will… except when doing so would offer an easy escape from a threat.

Trying to carry out a critical appraisal of this is hard; it’s like trying to write 500 words reviewing vanilla pudding. I’ve had to work harder on this piece, than almost any of the other novels I’ve covered, and just knocked half a star off the literary rating as a penalty. Maybe such savagery will teach Ms. Danley a lesson.

Author: Kate Danley
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 10 in the Maggie MacKay Magical Tracker series.