It sounded so promising; a fantasy adaptation with a screenplay by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, who together also wrote the screenplays for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A small caveat – they also did so for the Hobbit trilogy which was a lot less engaging but still ‘ok’. But then again, the three of them also worked together on King Kong (2005) which was pretty good, so surely all in all Mortal Engines must be in good hands.
Three teenage kids break into a house in a desolate part of Detroit, where they believe they will find a safe full of money. Rocky (Jane Levy) hopes this money will give her a way out of her desperate home situation; and Alex (Dylan Minette) is nurturing his not-so-secret crush on Rocky; and Money (Daniel Zovatto) is in it, well, for the money. This should be an easy target: Dylan steals the house keys from his father’s security business, and the home owner is a blind man…