“Mortal Engines” takes place after the “Sixty Minute War” has brought humanity to the brink, and the world’s metropolises have escaped from their locations. It is the era of “municipal Darwinism,” when “predator cities” rove on wheels and “ingest” smaller ones, assimilating their populations and looting the spoils. In the opening sequence, London devours a Bavarian mining town. Do rural areas fear urban domination? (“We should never have gone into Europe,” frets Magnus Crome, the vaguely imperial ruler of London played by Patrick Malahide.)

Source: New York Times December 13, 2018 12:00 UTC