Category Archives: Movies

This Old Guy Reviews: Mortal Engines

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This Old Guy enjoys film and TV that runs the gamut from avant-garde and acclaimed (Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows”, Werner Herzog’s documentaries, HBO’s recent “Chernobyl” series) to the profoundly unserious (Syfy’s “Happy” series, ABC’s “The Good Place,” Cartoon Network’s “The Amazing World of Gumball”)

Watching bad films can be a source of great joy for me; not only do I get a boost to my self-confidence as a writer (“Wait, if studios financed this script, then there’s no way my stuff doesn’t get made!”) but also by sharpening my analytical skills, as I try to figure what, exactly, went wrong. Syd Field’s gift to all screenwriters is insanely useful in that regard; my enthusiasm for his thinking is tempered by an appreciation for films that follow none of his prescriptive advice and succeed anyway. And there are many!

Mortal Engines is not a successful movie, but layers of half-baked movie concepts smashed together into a confection that is less New Zealand’s Best and more Nailed It! Kiwi-style. There is a visually stunning and silly short featuring mobile, carnivorous cities (“municipial Darwinism”!) There is a shiny romance between two characters who start with nothing in common but their hearts of gold. There is a scheming scientist with a nefarious plot and a daughter innocent to his wicked ways. A character from a James Cameron film is air-dropped into the proceedings, roughly at the same time as a gender-fluid remix of a character from a George Lucas film.

I would suggest there’s about one-third of a very good film hidden inside Mortal Engines, a narrative centered around the complicated relationship between an unlikely father and an adopted child. It’s a pity you have to sit through the other two thirds of the film, which – even with the assistance of as much legal cannabis as I cared to ingest – was not a source of joy.

Dubious: Dark Phoenix

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I’m not excited by the new X-men film (me, the guy with Magneto tattooed on his back, and Wolverine, Colossus and Psylocke inked on my legs.) Why not? Well, I admire Sophie Turner’s acting skills, and Michael Fassbender’s Magneto is inspired, but the creators have either forgotten or never knew why the fundamental reason the Jean Gray/Phoenix storyline was special.

Comic book readers knew Jean Gray before the Phoenix saga, you see, for years and years. Jean arrived at the mansion back at the very beginning; she was Marvel Girl, and a source of adolescent jockeying between Cyclops, Ice Man and all the dudes (only dudes, of course!) present. She was a constant, a member of this alternative family who didn’t get great lines and who wasn’t well defined, but she was still a foundational element.

Her transformation into Phoenix (and her eventual fate) was shocking and fascinating and revolutionary, but that shock and fascination depended upon the familiarity the fan base had with Jean Grey. She wasn’t just some character trotted out for the purpose of a comic book (or a single movie), she was an intimate part of the X-men family (and Marvel universe.)

SPOILERS AHEAD
Turn back now if you’re not familiar with the Dark Phoenix saga, and how the threat is ultimately resolved.

When the first Dark Phoenix comics came out, it was not unusual for characters to die and then return. Professor X faked his own death at least once (sorry, adopted children, but it’s for your own good) but always came back. (Ha ha! I was in the basement all along!)

Having a foundational character die a permanent death, though? That was unheard-of, a total shock. The clear-eyed refusal on the part of Marvel’s editorial department to resurrect Jean Grey for decades elevated her demise into something more than just a parable about trying to control immense power. Jean Grey’s death was a genuine, human tragedy, and a sign at the time that comic book makers were ready to stop making excuses for the medium of comic book art and start trying to take full advantage of the form.

No matter how well-written the script, how talented the actors, or how clever the director, I’m skeptical that there’s time in a single movie to establish the bond between the audience and the Jean Grey character that the original comics leveraged. The easy point of comparison is the recent Avengers: Endgame film; the bonds between audience and characters were built and reaffirmed over more than twenty films. Jean Grey’s final fate should hit us as square as any of the deaths in Avengers: Endgame, but I’m dubious.

(And it doesn’t help that they’ve already tried to make a movie out of the Dark Phoenix saga, and X-men: the Last Stand was so terrible.)