STEAMPUNKERY! OR: HOW COME "MORTAL ENGINES' ISN'T FUNNY?

Mortal Engines (2018)   How depressing when we found out we weren't the only ones struck by the same thought while enduring this movie........

                  That it's like watching an unfunny, two hour plus version of the Monty Python movie skit, "The Crimson Permanent Assurance Company"..........where elderly pirates steering an old office building lay siege to a modern skyscraper.......

                    Ah well.....there goes our "Eureka!" moment of original thought.......

                    Other than the fact that the the film misses its golden opportunity to become a riotous satire on a typical bloated, soulless CGI spectacle......we can't work up enough energy to hurl more shit at it.........

                      It's already a massive turd, so why bother?

                      The actors? Forget it. They might as well have used marionettes, like the "Thunderbirds" TV show.  (In fact, one character, some sort of half-zombie, half-robot-guy looks like he's operated by a half-drunk puppeteer....)

                        As the film opens, we're transported to.....uh, what did they call it in the 'Mad Max movies.....after the Pocky-Lips?   London's on wheels.....literally.......chugging along on giant tank treads and swallowing up smaller wheeled towns for their spare parts.......and we do mean swallowing......

                       This steampunk-run-amuck stuff is fascinating to watch for about the first  8 minutes or so.......it features, after all, everything that a 100 million budget and 5,000 CGI animators will get you......

                        At about the 8 minute mark, you begin to realize that it's nothing but a massive upchuck of  'Transformer', 'Mad Max', 'Terminator' and 'Star Wars' movies.......thoughtlessly thrown together like paint splatters and designed mainly for audiences in China......who'll watch anything to make them temporarily forget they're stuck in goddamn China.......

                         What a wasted chance.......the filmmakers could have upended and lampooned the never ending parade of CGI atrocities the same way "Dr.Strangelove" mocked nuclear end-of-days thrillers.

                         But alas, with all those millions on the line, they stayed serious as a heart attack.....except for their one pathetic little visual gag.....throwing in statues of 'Despicable Me's Minions as museum pieces curated from before the Pocky-Lips.....

                         Here's the real joke on this movie's Powers-That-Be......Peter Jackson and all his 'Lord Of The Rings' and 'Hobbit' cohorts.........they don't realize they ended up with a movie that looks like it was made by Minions.........all of them jabbering away at each other in a state of total chaos......

                       Inhuman and mechanical as its jumbo wheeled London......"Mortal Engines" wins our rare but well deserved AFH rating.....an ABOMINATION FROM HELL.......come to think of it, if there is a hell, movies like this probably unspool there eternally......