9/3/19 Mortal Engines? (Movie Hulu)

    I saw ads for this movie last year and was super excited to see what it was going to be.  Man, it was sort of a disappointment.  People live on moving cities and the idea is they go about devouring or fighting each other, which they call Municipal Darwinism.  London of course is supposed to be our hero, full of white people and doing what they do best, conquer at will.  There is a power struggle going on between the current Mayor and Thaddeus Valentine, who is head of the guild of Historians.  He is sneakily working on an old weapon, collecting bits and pieces from the lands that they consume.  Eventually, things get interesting when a scarred young girl manages to get on board London and attempts to murder Thaddeus.  She runs around the ship with a young guy chasing her, he manages to catch her and she tells him that Thaddeus killed her mother and is a bad guy.  When he repeats this to Thaddeus, he kicks the kid of the rails and into a chute which gets them off the London vehicle.
    The most interesting thing in the movie is that the girl, Hester, is raised by an actual monster.  A creature brought back from the dead for the purpose of killing.  He sort of raised her from the age of 8 and has a weird connection to her.  When she is "grown", he offers to make her a "stalker" like himself, which she doesn't necessarily want because she has to die "for a little bit" (maybe the only funny line in the movie).  My brother took this movie very seriously in that it showed the power dynamic between white culture and how the Chinese and Indians are the next in line to be in control.  China (or what I understood to be China) was not doing things on mobil cities, but living like we are supposed to, on ground.  They have a massive wall that has never been breached, but the new super tool might change that.
    I thought it was curious that Tom, the young guy had been kicked out of London and was now on the other side, who had been warned that London was coming, so they were sending their planes to attack, was somehow pissy that many people he knew were going to get killed by those planes.  I thought "Asshole, London is coming this way, It's not like China is looking for trouble, be mad at your city."  While en route, the upper class people are out on their garden grounds clapping and cheering on the attack and the new weapon which seems like the cat's pajamas.
    The visual effects were awesome, but the storyline was a little lame, even going as far as almost saying "Hester, I am your father." when the scarred girl gets a second chance to kill the horrible Thaddeus.  The girl being raised by the "stalker" was an interesting plot twist, but it all seemed a jumbled mess.  He raised her from a young age and then wanted to turn her into his wife or something, which even for a monster is creepy, and he basically died of a broken heart when he finds out she loves the pretty boy (big surprise there).