Mortal Engines Review: 3 Ups & 7 Downs

5. The Awful Editing & Direction

This is the directorial debut of Christian Rivers, a New Zealander who has worked as either a storyboard artist or visual effects supervisor on the vast majority of Peter Jackson's movies.

Quite why Universal agreed to hand $100 million to a first-time filmmaker, even one with a friend as talented as Jackson, is anyone's guess, and sadly the end result reflects this.

There are certainly many visually enticing shots throughout Mortal Engines, but Rivers struggles to stitch them together in a satisfying way, resulting in countless scenes rendered irritating through rough, spatially confusing editing.

Fight sequences involving Anna Fang (Jihae) prove especially disorientating, with Rivers deploying an infuriating number of cuts between close-ups shots, making it virtually impossible to savour the breakneck action.

Even some fairly basic dialogue scenes are filled with unnecessary cuts to the point of distraction.

While nobody's saying Rivers should stick to his day job, he might want to hone his craft on a smaller-scale project next time, because this was clearly too much for him to handle.