• Mortal Engines to lose more than $100 million at box office.
    38 replies, posted
I'm not at all surprised. Every trailer I saw for it suggested that the story and writing were both hot garbage. It's an interesting setting bogged down by mediocre writing. Doesn't change the fact that I'm going to see it with my parents later today, and enjoy the schlocky garbage for what it is. First thing we've done together in over half a year.
Whats with all the book adaptions just utterly sucking? Are they not allowed to use the book as the script?
that elevator pitch sounds amazing. Now i'm mad this flopping will kill any genuinely cool steampunk projects pitched because "oh that one failed so th emarket doesn't want it!"
Adapting a book is not as cut and dried as you might think. Books have a lot more freedom than films, considering they can stretch things out as long as long as they need to be, while films have a time constraint. Situations, characters and ideas either have to be condensed or cut out entirely, a lot of the times because they just don’t work outside of the book. Adapting a book is a fine line between keeping the same tone and feel of the book while also making it work in an entirely different medium.
He didn't really have too much of a role in this. Besides, he just got done with *They Shall Not Grow Old* which was pretty good tbh.
So my personal opinion on the film is this: If you're looking for an interesting and engaging story, or engaging and emotional writing, then look elsewhere. If you're looking for some cool world-building in a dieselpunk aesthetic, I'd give Mortal Engines a chance. As I said above, I expected the writing to be hot garbage. I wasn't looking for it. I was just looking for a cool world in a dieselpunk aesthetic, and Mortal Engines delivers that in spades. Honestly surpassed my expectations in that department. And I do want to be clear, the writing isn't bad. It's perfectly competent. And that's it - competent. It's a very bog-standard quest-for-revenge-becomes-quest-to-save-the-world story that you'd find in any mainstream action game these days. The writing delivers its exposition in a nice, even pacing. All of the actors give a solid performance. This film would almost do better if it was written poorly. At least then the writing would have people talking about it. But instead, it's caught in the trap of mediocrity - too unoriginal and uninspiring to yield praise, yet too competent and effective to be lampooned. It's just... there. Also Hugo Weaving is looking snazzy as fuck with that beard.
hopefully we've reached the point where viewers are tired of these samey YA novel adaptations they're all the god damn same
i work at a theater as a bartender/manager currently. we had very little people show up for mortal engines, it's just not a good time right now. first, college students are in their finals week and are studying. second, spiderman: into the spider-verse came out on the same day (wasn't as packed as i thought it would be, but it was obvious these people were here for spiderman and not mortal engines) third, aquaman comes out this week. if people were going to see 1 or 2 movies this week, it'd be aquaman and possibly bumblebee (and maybe some more spiderman)
I watched first hour of this film and got bored because the characters were so generic and predictable. Visually the film is good and I liked the world but the story was just so lame and I could already see how the movie ends after first 40 minutes. I work at the cinema and watched the ending later from the projection room and was just like.. "I so fucking knew it". Think most people we had showing up for this film was like 30-40. Bohemian Rhapsody and Fantastic Beasts are still getting more viewers than this one.
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