'Alita: Battle Angel' Review

Synopsis: Set several centuries in the future, the abandoned Alita is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Ido, a compassionate cyber-doctor who takes the unconscious cyborg to his clinic. When Alita awakens, she has no memory of who she is, nor does she have any recognition of the world she finds herself in. As Alita learns to navigate her new life and the treacherous streets of Iron City, Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious past.

Runtime: 122 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language)

Who should see it? Teens and up, as the action can be quite gruesome for PG-13.

Based on Yukito Kishiro's manga series Gunnm, Alita: Battle Angel is directed by Robert Rodriguez and features a screenplay by James Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis. Originally Cameron was slated to direct, but his fixation on the future of the Avatar franchise kept him preoccupied. After impressing the visionary with a condensed version of Cameron's script, Rodriguez was enlisted to helm the film adaptation by Cameron himself. Cameron still produced the feature though, and his influence is quite evident in Alita's digital aesthetic since it employs the same CG-technology utilized on Avatar. If there's one thing to be said about Alita: Battle Angel, it's that the visual effects are extraordinary.

You're undoubtedly paying first-and-foremost for sensational cybernetic spectacle, as the combat sequences and motor-ball matches are particularly eye-catching. The world itself is also quite fascinating, with a unique appearance compared to other cinematic dystopian societies. I will say though that the universe's internal logic could have been better explained, as a friend of mine familiar with the source material had to clarify a few things for me afterward. 

While I don't disagree with the consensus that Alita prioritizes style over substance, the filmmakers clearly made an effort to imbue the character and over-arching narrative with a touch of sentiment. The heart of this film is derived from the lead character, and it wouldn't function without her. Thankfully, Roza Salazar provided an excellent motion-capture performance and modern technology's progressed far enough for Alita to be well-realized on the big screen. The large eyes may look a bit peculiar at first glance, but you'll adjust to them as the story progresses. On that note, that's where I deemed Alita underwhelming. You can give me two and a half hours of thrilling action, but it ultimately doesn't matter if I'm not invested in the characters and story. Unfortunately, I just didn't care about much aside from Alita. 

With virtually no chemistry between the two leads, the romantic subplot is a bore. Otherwise, the plotting drags, and the narrative's crammed with so many other threads that it's difficult to latch onto any while dialogue teeters between being exposition-heavy and inherently cheesy. The characterization for the supporting cast is notably light as well. However, I'd say Alita's most significant drawback is that too much source material was stuffed into two hours along with sequel set-up. It'd be better served as a series with more time available to flesh out the world and characters.

As I mentioned earlier, there weren't any sparks flying between Roza Salazar's Alita and Keean Johnson's Hugo. Since Salazar's nuanced expressions and mannerism were expertly translated through motion-capture, I think this was mostly due to Johnson's wooden dialogue delivery. However, writing and direction are equally at fault. Elsewhere, Christoph Waltz, Ed Skrein, and Mahershala Ali made the most of their respective roles while Jennifer Connelly felt a bit underutilized in the grand scheme of things. I do wish these characters had been more substantial though.

In spite of its shortcomings, Alita: Battle Angel's quite endearing and awe-inspiring when all is said-and-done! It's well worth the price of admission for striking visuals and thrilling action, but be prepared for artificial, automated storytelling.

Film Assessment: B-

'Maze Runner: The Death Cure' Review

I'm well aware of that this review is ridiculously late, but I figured it would be worth it for me to share my thoughts regardless. I saw Maze Runner: The Death Cure two Saturdays ago, but I've neglected to write anything about it because I was working on a few other posts that demanded a higher priority of attention. For those curious, I'm seeing Black Panther tonight and will quickly get to work on uploading a review before I go out of town for the weekend. 

'Maze Runner: The Death Cure' Review

In Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Thomas leads his group of escaped Gladers to save their friends in a daring rescue. To do so, they'll have to break into WCKD's seemingly impenetrable base of operations known as the Last City. Meanwhile the organization desperately searches for a cure for the Flare virus inside the city's heavily fortified walls.

The Death Cure functions as a final farewell to both the Maze Runner series and America's fleeting love affair with the dystopian young-adult genre. In 2012, the success of The Hunger Games lead Hollywood to rampantly adapt other dystopian YA book series to the big screen. This YA craze brought us a few film franchises (Maze Runner, Divergent), but Hollywood soon learned their lesson when Allegiant flopped and caused the final flick in the Divergent series to be banished to the realm of television where it'd never be made... With all this being said, I commend 20th Century Fox and Wes Ball for sticking it out and finishing what they started with The Maze Runner and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, but I'm even more impressed that they didn't follow that obnoxious trend of splitting the final book into two parts!

While I didn't read any of the Maze Runner books, I enjoyed the first film for what it was and felt the franchise had a lot of potential till I was tremendously disappointed by The Scorch Trials... Therefore, I didn't know what to expect with this third entry, seeing as the first had an intriguing premise which essentially married Lord of the Flies with a dystopian setting and abundant instances of exciting action while the sequel squandered all that with a story that hopelessly meandered once the characters made it out of the maze. My biggest gripe with the previous two installments though was that they each ended with lingering, unanswered questions. However, I'm unsure whether this complaint should be levied against the respective movies or the source material itself since I never read the books. Nevertheless, I had hopes The Death Cure would tie up these loose ends, and screenwriter T.S. Nowlin seems to have made it a priority to resolve just about every character and story arc that had previously been introduced.

However, this brings about another problem all together. The issue being that the story is simply overcrowded with dangling plot threads (new and old), which in turn meant that quite a few of their respective resolutions were half-baked in execution. There's also an odd sense of importance placed on wrapping everything up, to the extent that the most important arcs don't really receive their proper due and I felt rather apathetic about the whole thing. Maybe this all worked much better in the book, but a sound send-off was lost in the translation to the big screen.

On that note, it's perplexing that the finale depends on a relationship between two characters that it hardly touched on previously. Although there were certainly inklings of a romantic connection between Thomas and Teresa, the shared history between these characters was a little unclear and wishy-washy because of their amnesia. Yet Nowlin and Ball expect audiences to take a leap of faith and invest themselves in a relationship where most of the interaction between love interests occurred off-screen, which is an even heftier task because the leads lack a convincing chemistry and their characters are fairly flat. Notwithstanding a lifeless love affair, Dylan O'Brien and Kaya Scodelario are quite committed on their own. The romance fails more on account of the inadequate set-up than because of the two actors. 

With that being said, it's such a shame that there's an IMMENSELY entertaining action film trapped inside the confines of an unnecessarily, overcomplicated story structure. If the preceding chapters of the series demonstrated anything, it was that Wes Ball is well-capable of delivering on all the riveting action you could possibly ask for. Sadly this came at the expense of a serious on-set injury for O'Brien that delayed the film's release an entire year, but I can foresee Ball shepherding a solid action franchise if he had a more established screenwriter working alongside him. 

In regards to the sprawling ensemble, everyone brings a quality performance to the table based on what they're given to work with. Front and center in the role of Thomas, O'Brien makes for a solid action star so it's a shame to see his talent go to waste starring in mediocre action movies rather than leading higher-callibur projects. Scodelario is also sufficient as Teresa and equally deserving of better work. Filling out the supporting roles is an interesting mixture of youthful actors and recognizable veterans including the likes of Ki Hong Lee, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Dexter Darden, Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, Aidan Gillen, Patricia Clarkson, Barry Pepper, and Walton Goggins.

I'd say that Maze Runner: The Death Cure is comparable to a sprinter trying to run a marathon. While The Death Cure starts off strong, it doesn't have the stamina to entertain and invest audiences for two and half hours. Even though the senseless spectacle can certainly be enjoyable in the moment, The Death Cure lost most of its momentum two hours in and is fairly forgettable afterwards. Too bad Wes Ball wasn't able to offer audiences a remedy for that...

Film Assessment: C+