Category: Movie Reviews

First, a quick apology… I’ve been off the radar for a while, and not written many movie reviews (I wrote many for my old blog). It’s something I hope to rectify…

‘Alita: Battle Angel’ tells the story of a ‘young’ woman in the distant future. Her upper, part mechanical body is found in a garbage dump beneath the last floating, elitist human city, by a cyborg engineer, Dr Ido, who lives in the lower-class city formed on beneath it. Ido gives her a new body and name, and the story then proceeds show her awakening, both literally and metaphorically. She has no memory of who or what she was, but learns a little about her past, finds love, and struggles to fight for what she believes in, in a brutal and near-lawless world.

Since Titanic and Avatar, I had stopped expecting James Cameron movies to be great. Not that I hated those films, but they never really grabbed me the way the way previous films did. However, having recently watched ‘Alita’ in IMAX 3D… let’s just say James Cameron (and Robert Rodriguez) have won me over again! Alita is the best big sci-fi action movie I’ve seen in a long time. In an age where we’re just seeing the same plots recycled again and again with interchangeable, soulless super-heroes, I enjoyed the hell out of this. I’m not saying it was perfect, but I was pleasantly surprised. I could have sat in that cinema for another couple of hours, without any worry of boredom, and I can’t remember the last time I watched a big effects movie and felt so completely lost in it.

Although previously aware of Battle Angel Alita (The movie reversed the English-language version of the title), I have never read or watched the original source material, so I had no preconceptions going in. Many of the plot themes and ideas may have been done before, some obvious (**cough** Rollerball **cough**), and some less so, but you can say that about almost any movie. The real question is whether those ideas are packaged in a new, engrossing story with interesting characters. The answer, in Alita’s case, is a big ‘YES’.

(Warning, the rest of this review may contain spoilers)

Rosa Salazar, who plays Alita, is a revelation. The level of emotion she achieves through the motion-capture is astonishing and, quite honestly, puts many live action stars to shame. The large eyes may stem from honouring her anime origins, but you soon forget them, and only see the character. Not only that, but in the context of the story and her past, they feel quite logical and serve to visually amplify elements of her personality (Story-wise you can deduce, without being told, that they’re probably a genetic enhancement for living on Mars, with a low-light environment, or for low-light space combat).

Speaking of Alita’s large eyes, her existence as a totally CG character is one of the main elements of the film, and could have been an off-putting mistake. Luckily, the effects work by WETA (who created other well-known CG characters such as Gollum for the Lord of the Rings movies) is breath-taking. Seeing brief glimpses of Alita in the trailer may leave you on the fence but, rest assured, once you are engrossed in that world and story, you almost forget that she’s different. You simply accept her as the character and want to follow her story. The expressiveness of her face, helped in no small part by the actress, makes her beautiful to watch, whether she’s just gazing in wide-eyed fascination at something she’s never seen before (pun intended), or leaping around in battle.

I’ve read comments complaining that, being a cyborg, Alita should not have a ‘feminine’ form and has been overly ‘sexualised’. I can only presume the critics who’ve said such things haven’t got a clue about storytelling, cinema, or reality (or even sexuality, for that matter). When you’re telling a story about a young woman who is mostly mechanical, a large part of her story is visual. Cinema is a visual story-telling medium with limited time to create characters, situations and worlds. Having Alita look feminine is a clear and simple way to give you a sense of who she is, despite her ‘machine’ existence. She’s a young woman (psychologically, if not literally).

As her character grows throughout the story, it also serves as a wonderful echo of her emotional change. When she awakens, she is an innocent in so many ways, learning the ways of the world. She is emotionally akin to a teenager, and the body Dr Ido provides is a perfect reflection of this, both in shape and texture. Later, when she learns more of who she was, and what she can do, as well as suffering through the brutality and cruelty of this new world, she matures into a stronger character. She becomes a young woman, rather than an insecure teenager. Her new ‘warrior’ body in turn re-enforces this, and the story even explains that her form moulds itself to reflect her mental self-image. Her self-image at that point is more adult. Let’s not forget, that she still has a human brain in there, and presumably had a normal body before becoming a cyborg.

As for the romance in Alita, it’s touching and sweet. It is the epitome of innocent love, again enforced by her mechanical form, since anything more sordid appears impossible. I haven’t said much about the other characters up till now, but Keean Johnson as Hugo, the romantic interest, is himself an interesting character. He’s jaded, having grown up in a brutal and dangerous world, where every day is simply a struggle to survive. Whilst he shows Alita this new world, he also gets to see it through her more innocent and optimistic eyes.

Christoph Waltz as Dr Ido makes for an interesting father figure. His story beats aren’t going to shake the world with originality, but they serve as a foundation for Alita and explain why he brought her back to life and how they both form a father/daughter bond. Meanwhile, Jennifer Conolly as Chiren, an initial enemy of Alita, is a character who has a little more depth than you would expect.

There’s a hefty dose of Robocop to Alita’s story, but in a good way. Whilst Alita doesn’t quite have the same issues regaining her humanity, she has similar problems rediscovering who she was, and learning who and what she is now. Her character has a sincerity and (non-annoying) innocence that all combines to make her a sympathetic hero that you want to see succeed. Despite her strength and abilities, she is still brought low at one point, much the way Murphy was, so that you empathise and don’t feel she is indestructible or perfect.

I can’t say there are any real negatives in Alita, but there are one or two elements I might question. There is scene late in the movie, where Dr Ido helps Alita as she prepares for her first MotorBall competition. Up till that point he appeared to be against her entry, but then jumps to supporting her. The moment doesn’t feel inappropriate, so much as lacking a scene to explain his change of heart (it’s the kind of thing that you suspect may well turn up in a director’s cut or deleted scenes). It could be explained with a few simple lines in which he shows his disapproval, she explains why she feels she has to enter the games, and he then replies that if he can’t convince her otherwise, he will at least help her in what way he can.

Secondly, I did feel that Hugo’s conclusion came too quickly in relation to prior events. His final scene shows his character’s drive to escape the world below, but realising too-late that being with Alita on the ground is better than being alone in the dream of what-could-be above. The drawback is that it all happens too soon after his near death at the hands of another villain, and devalues Alita’s efforts at having saved him from that fate.

Lastly, the end feels a little abrupt. It’s perfectly fitting, and brilliantly leaves you wanting more, but you can’t help wishing you could sit there for another hour or two, to watch Alita’s battle against behind-the-scenes villain, Nova. Then again, it’s a testament to the film that, after two hours in a cinema, I would have happily sat for another two. A lot of movies these days are far longer than they need to be, whereas in Alita’s case, if anything, it’s the opposite. The character and the world are such that you are happy to lose yourself in them, from the quiet emotional moments through to the pulse-pounding action.

So any criticisms are stunningly minor for any movie, let along a modern blockbuster. They’re not really flaws, so much as story-telling beats that I felt could’ve been handled differently. So from my perspective, I can’t recommend Alita enough! This is the kind of blockbuster I hope is successful, because I truly want to watch the sequel.

I can’t wait for the 3D Blu Ray to enjoy this again, and especially watch how it was made. I may even have to see it again at the cinema, before it finishes its run… It’s been a while since I could say that about a big blockbuster!

All work is the © copyright of W.D.Lee and/or the respective companies, individuals or organisations to which the work is related. No infringement is intentional. No reproduction or copying is permitted without express permission.

(Be warned, this review contains spoilers)

The Last Jedi is the latest instalment in Disney’s attempt to continue the Star Wars saga.

I managed to resist writing a review of The Force Awakens, a film so bad that my first draft reached about three pages, before I decided I had better things to do. Having seen The Last Jedi, however, I had to write something. TFA may have been a mess of a film, but there was just enough story to criticise. Not so, with The Last Jedi. If The Force Awakens was a flashy car driving off in the wrong direction without a map, The Last Jedi is the remains of the car after they drove it off a cliff without looking where they were going, in a manic, drunken haze.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a huge Star Wars fan. I love all six of the Lucas films, even the prequels with their occasional hiccups. However, I had no preconceptions about where the new trilogy stories should go. I enjoyed the continuation novels when I was younger, but many of them were flawed and I was happy for the films to go in a new direction. The problem is, that direction should be up, not down. Forward, not backward. I don’t automatically dislike ‘new’ Star Wars films because I’m no longer 12. I greatly enjoyed Rogue One, and I love all of the animated Clone Wars saga. My opinions on The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are based, as much as they can be, on my opinion that they are badly written, poorly thought out stories in general, irrespective of Star Wars.

Having said that, there’s no point even delving into the story or character details of The Last Jedi. Plenty of people have done that, but frankly there’s so little substance or logic to the new movie that trying to criticise individual elements would like trying to criticise a random number generator for not counting sequentially. The Last Jedi genuinely plays out like Randolph and Mortimer had a $1 bet that if they went out of their way to make a nonsensical mess, it would still be a success, hailed for its brilliance simply because it is a main-sequence Star Wars movie. I’m not even exagerating. The film is such a total shambles devoid of merit, that such a revelation would not surprise me if proven true. In fact, it would make more sense than imagining so many talented people thought they were making something worthwhile. All that would be needed is for Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd to jump out, accompanied by Jamie Lee Curtis, screaming “Surprise!” (See Trading Places, if you’re confused).

Nothing of consequence happens in The Last Jedi, apart from the death of a beloved character from the original trilogy (who isn’t remotely like his original character except for the same actor and character name) and the death of a sort-of villain. A villain who, because of his death in this film, served no purpose anyway. Episode 9 could avoid any reference to the events of this movie, and still have no need to explain anything apart from Luke’s fate.

The Last Jedi truly makes films like The Fast and the Furious 7 seem like a logical, character driven drama with accurate physics. So forgetting the story and plot (since there weren’t any), what about the other elements?

One of the surprisingly poor things was the acting. Now, I’m pretty lenient when it comes to acting. For example, I love a lot of cheesy 80s action movies that many people would consider awful. However, some of the efforts in The Last Jedi, especially from Daisy Ridley, were honestly shocking (And having seen her in other things, I know she can act). Do you remember what it was like in school, to see other children acting in plays, where they recite lines in a monotone voice with quick breaths between every other word? I’m not exagerating when I say that is how she delivered many of her lines. Again, I wonder whether it will all be revealed as a big joke – a stretched out clip from a sketch show where they were all having fun lampooning Star Wars and science fiction in general. Only Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill come through with dignity, as consummate professionals despite the dire material.

Okay, even if the acting and story are poor, surely the action is fun? I’m sorry to say, the action scenes lacked any sense of engagement. Even the Transformers movies at their worst, are pulse-pounding eye-candy. I felt not a single quickened pulse or rush of adrenalin with The Last Jedi. The only way I could describe it, is to say imagine an action scene from Robocop or Total Recall, then imagine a scene where a character just fires repeatedly down a shooting range at a villain, neither of them moving. Next, imagine you’re supposed to find the latter every bit as exciting and action-packed as the former. To be clear, I’m not trying to describe the visuals in any literal way. I’m attempting to find a way to describe the emotional engagement of the action in the film.

I have heard a lot of praise for the striking visuals and direction in The Last Jedi, but I found both highly lacking and without any sense of cohesion. There are perhaps three scenes that felt visually interesting, but too consciously so. Perhaps my low opinion of the rest of the movie has tainted my general opinion of the direction and cinematography. One of the strangest things I discovered, which also happened with The Force Awakens (albeit not to the same extent), was a sense of ‘smallness’. Through the magic of story telling, Lucas managed to conjure a sense of the entire galaxy behind his stories, even in the first Star Wars, which was then expanded exponentially as he went. The Last Jedi feels as though it’s an, inconsequential little side-story. The Rebel fleet and the Imperial forces have been whittled down to nothing before the film even starts, and through it all there’s no sense of a wider galaxy beyond a single populated planet visited during the film.

The humour is also ‘off’ in this movie. There has always been hefty dose of tongue-in-cheek humour in Star Wars. It is, after all, a family-friendly adventure, albeit with a thoughtful, philosophical core that lends it depth (during the Lucas era, anyway). Lucas could be accused of taking some of the humour too far in the Prequels, but even the infamous Mr Binks was comedic genius compared to the out-of-place Marvelesque levels on display here.

As with The Force Awakens, sadly John Williams appears to have given up again, where the best moments are simply highlights from the original movies. But with this material, who can blame him?

Was there anything good about the film? Well, the Porgs were cute, though over-used, and the crystaline fox-wolves looked great. There was a single, vaguely interesting character thread, as Rey and Emo-Darth shared a bond through some long-distance communication, yet even that ultimately came to nothing. That’s about all that I took away from this car crash of a movie. The tragic and truly sad thing, is knowing that this was Carrie Fisher’s last outing as our wonderful Princess Leia. She deserved so much better, as did Mark Hamill (who delivered a far better performance than the script deserved).

I thought the only way was up, after The Force Awakens. Boy, was I wrong… Whilst I’ve seen worse films, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a major, mega-budget studio production quite this poor. Even Jupiter Ascending, Suicide Squad or John Carter were less of a mess. Perhaps the worst sin, is that ultimately the film is truly boring. Nothing of consequence happens, and even the moments that should be full of excitement or emotion are simply flat and lifeless. Let us just hope the new Han Solo movie is more like Rogue One, as it looks like the only hope we have for decent Star Wars in the future is from the stand-alone movies. I’m giving The Last Jedi a higher score than it deserves, with a star for both Mark and Carrie.

All work is the © copyright of W.D.Lee and/or the respective companies, individuals or organisations to which the work is related. No infringement is intentional. No reproduction or copying is permitted without express permission.