Mortal Engines
Entry updated 28 September 2026. Tagged: Film.
US film (2018). Universal Pictures. Directed by Christian Rivers. Written by Phillipa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, based on the novel Mortal Engines (2001) by Philip Reeve. Cast includes Leila George, Hera Hilmer, Jihae, Stephen Lang, Patrick Malahide, Ronan Raftery, Robert Sheehan and Hugo Weaving. 128 minutes. Colour.
A thousand years after a devastating war that disrupted Earth's geography, the remaining humans are living in factions in two areas. One in Western Europe, called the "Hunting Ground", has taken to living in moving Cities that survive by preying upon and incorporating smaller cities. The other in China, called the "Anti-Traction League", lives in normal cities and actively opposes the Hunting Ground. The complex plot involves the adventures of Tom Natsworthy (Sheehan), a young historian living in the mobile London, and Hester (Hilmer), a young woman who was raised by Shrike (Lang), a Cyborg who pursues Hester because he wants her to also become a cyborg. Tom and Hester meet after his London home absorbs a smaller city, and soon aided by an Anti-Traction League agent named Anna (Jihae), they oppose the machinations of the sinister Head of the Guild of Historians, Valentine (Weaving), who is secretly Hester's father. He has obtained a powerful Weapon used during the war and, after taking over London, uses it against the Anti-Traction League. But his daughter Katherine (George) has turned against him to also become an ally in opposing Valentine. In the end, Valentine is killed, the weapon is eliminated, and as the new leader of London, Katherine establishes peace with the Anti-Traction League.
It is incongruous that these future humans have returned to the architecture, science, and social structure of the nineteenth century while eagerly salvaging surviving pieces of more advanced Technology; but this is explained by the fact that Reeve originally intended to write a Steampunk Alternate History about moving cities in Victorian times before deciding to set his story in the future; the film's airships are also a standard feature of steampunk stories. Reeve recalls past sf stories about moving cities such as Christopher Priest's The Inverted World (1974) and Greg Bear's Strength of Stones (1988), adding the idea that such cities might attack and absorb each other. Still, the dubious Economics of sustaining a moving city solely by occasionally obtaining resources from other cities is overlooked. The film proved unsuccessful, leaving Reeve's sequels to the novel unadapted. [GW]
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