Hey "Mortal Engines" - look at this: This is how it's done!
Both of these movies play in the steampunk/cyberpunk genre setting, both movies are about revenge, both movies have a female lead with a male sidekick that is also somewhat of a love interest, and both movies play in a fantastic world that has different rules and different factions. Both movies are CGI heavy and heave a lot of action/fighting scenes and a final enemy as well as sub-boss - everything such as it was with "Mortal Engines". With costs of $150m and $170m both movies are even in the same league budget-wise.
The difference - to me - was that while I was really interested in "Mortal Engines" I wasn't really sure what to expect from Alita, and after Mortal Engines being really bad (see my Trackt-Review here: https://trakt.tv/comments/209128) I wasn't too interested in watching this - we even pushed the cinema reservation 3 times before finally watching this (unfortunately it then wasn't shown in 3D anymore).
But be assured: Other than the similarities mentioned above, these movies don't share much else - especially quality-wise there is an enormous gap between both movies.
The plot: In a dystopian future the offspring of the survivors of "The Fall", a mysterious event in which all but one sky cities crashed back down to earth - the junkyard of the sky cities, the offspring of the survivors of the sky city falls spend their time with robotic enhancements, playing Motorball or being a Hunter-Warrior, while dreaming of getting the chance to move to Zalem, the last floating sky city, where live is rumored to be paradisaical. In this setting Dr. Dyson Ido, a earth dwelling doctor and scientist and expert in cyborgs, finds parts of a cyborg in the waste-dumps of Zalem: An intact brain and heart combination - and he rebuilds her: Alita however does not remember anything from her past, and tries to make sense of what's happening around her as well as her origin.
So much for the plot. As you can see, there is a lot of plot already in this really short extract that I gave you. This is probably the biggest negative aspect: To get all of this background into one film. The movie manages this arguably quite well - if you are someone who needs an explanation for everything right from the get-go, you will probably have your problems with the story. If you can, however, just accept what you are given, and - so to speak - step into the brain of Alita who experiences everything from a clean slate as well, you wont have that much problems. I am of the second kind - I like comic books and in comic books it's often like that: You get presented a situation that you do not fully understand but you just appreciate the artworks, the little explanations that you get, and how the story unfolds. Alita is doing just that. And it's doing it very well:
With Christoph Waltz and Rosa Salazar we already get two really talented and lovable characters. Of course, Rosa Salazar is totally computerized and the thing that will stick with you right from the very first trailer are her huge eyes that make her look unnatural. Her CGI is however done extremely well, her facial mimics look ingenious and so you really like her right from the beginning. And this is a great plus - you find her likable and you identify with her (something Mortal Engines did not achieve at all). She is really cute in her naive ways, but you also realize right form the beginning, that she has her own mind, a great sense for justice and that she is extremely brave. After having established these two characters and the father-daugther bond that is to be, new characters get introduced, and while I was excited to see Jennifer Connelly her role is unfortunately a minor one. However, Ed Skrein as an enemy and Keean Johnson as love interest are really interesting characters. I really liked Keean's character Hugo and though that he and Alita had really great chemistry. And that's really seldom in a CGI and a Human character - but here it works absolutely excellent. There are other
Talking about the CGI: It's absolutely gorgeous. Everything looks great and realistic, and - different to most other CGI movies - you still get the felling that what's happening is intense and has consequences. This makes the fight scenes thrilling, e.g. when Alita faces Grewishka, and starts taking damage, this is actually pretty intense.
The running time of over 2h is pretty long, still you never feel bored or overwhelmed by fighting scenes and you never start asking "is the end near yet" - once or twice I wondered how it would end, just because we where already sitting at the cinema for a long time, and I dreaded an open end. Unfortunately in the end that's exactly what you get - an open end. Yet it didn't bother me as much as it bothers me with most other open endings - in a way this movie gets to a really satisfying closure in it self. Of course, it doesn't even begin to address even half of the questions that you might have, e.g. who is Nova, why is he doing what he's doing? Who is Alita, was her origin on the good side, or actually on the bad? Who threw her away, when and with what purpose? And what did she do all that time in Zalem? What was the Great Fall, why did it happen, who are the Martians, etc. pp.
Actually you might wonder if this movie did answer any question at all, and well - probably it didn't. But never the less, we get a really satisfying end. An ending however, that cries for a sequel, and I really really really hope that we do get to see one. This is of course unclear, due to this being probably the last movie that Fox has made as Fox (i.e. not under Disney), and Boxoffice results not being as high as expected, due to probably also many negative preliminary critics that I cannot share at all.
On the negative side however, I would say that over all the story isn't reinventing anything. It's a fish-out-of-water plot, you know who the end-bosses will be and the story develops in just the direction you'd expect, with a number of precursors.
I had a lot of fun in cinemas, I was really captivated, I loved the setting, I loved the characters, the CGI, the plot as it evolved. For me this is a must see, for anyone interested in cyberpunk/steampunk-ish movies.
Review by pygospaVIP 3BlockedParent2019-03-01T11:53:35Z
Hey "Mortal Engines" - look at this: This is how it's done!
Both of these movies play in the steampunk/cyberpunk genre setting, both movies are about revenge, both movies have a female lead with a male sidekick that is also somewhat of a love interest, and both movies play in a fantastic world that has different rules and different factions. Both movies are CGI heavy and heave a lot of action/fighting scenes and a final enemy as well as sub-boss - everything such as it was with "Mortal Engines". With costs of $150m and $170m both movies are even in the same league budget-wise.
The difference - to me - was that while I was really interested in "Mortal Engines" I wasn't really sure what to expect from Alita, and after Mortal Engines being really bad (see my Trackt-Review here: https://trakt.tv/comments/209128) I wasn't too interested in watching this - we even pushed the cinema reservation 3 times before finally watching this (unfortunately it then wasn't shown in 3D anymore).
But be assured: Other than the similarities mentioned above, these movies don't share much else - especially quality-wise there is an enormous gap between both movies.
The plot: In a dystopian future the offspring of the survivors of "The Fall", a mysterious event in which all but one sky cities crashed back down to earth - the junkyard of the sky cities, the offspring of the survivors of the sky city falls spend their time with robotic enhancements, playing Motorball or being a Hunter-Warrior, while dreaming of getting the chance to move to Zalem, the last floating sky city, where live is rumored to be paradisaical.
In this setting Dr. Dyson Ido, a earth dwelling doctor and scientist and expert in cyborgs, finds parts of a cyborg in the waste-dumps of Zalem: An intact brain and heart combination - and he rebuilds her: Alita however does not remember anything from her past, and tries to make sense of what's happening around her as well as her origin.
So much for the plot. As you can see, there is a lot of plot already in this really short extract that I gave you. This is probably the biggest negative aspect: To get all of this background into one film. The movie manages this arguably quite well - if you are someone who needs an explanation for everything right from the get-go, you will probably have your problems with the story. If you can, however, just accept what you are given, and - so to speak - step into the brain of Alita who experiences everything from a clean slate as well, you wont have that much problems. I am of the second kind - I like comic books and in comic books it's often like that: You get presented a situation that you do not fully understand but you just appreciate the artworks, the little explanations that you get, and how the story unfolds. Alita is doing just that. And it's doing it very well:
With Christoph Waltz and Rosa Salazar we already get two really talented and lovable characters. Of course, Rosa Salazar is totally computerized and the thing that will stick with you right from the very first trailer are her huge eyes that make her look unnatural. Her CGI is however done extremely well, her facial mimics look ingenious and so you really like her right from the beginning. And this is a great plus - you find her likable and you identify with her (something Mortal Engines did not achieve at all). She is really cute in her naive ways, but you also realize right form the beginning, that she has her own mind, a great sense for justice and that she is extremely brave. After having established these two characters and the father-daugther bond that is to be, new characters get introduced, and while I was excited to see Jennifer Connelly her role is unfortunately a minor one. However, Ed Skrein as an enemy and Keean Johnson as love interest are really interesting characters. I really liked Keean's character Hugo and though that he and Alita had really great chemistry. And that's really seldom in a CGI and a Human character - but here it works absolutely excellent. There are other
Talking about the CGI: It's absolutely gorgeous. Everything looks great and realistic, and - different to most other CGI movies - you still get the felling that what's happening is intense and has consequences. This makes the fight scenes thrilling, e.g. when Alita faces Grewishka, and starts taking damage, this is actually pretty intense.
The running time of over 2h is pretty long, still you never feel bored or overwhelmed by fighting scenes and you never start asking "is the end near yet" - once or twice I wondered how it would end, just because we where already sitting at the cinema for a long time, and I dreaded an open end.
Unfortunatelyin the end that's exactly what you get - an open end. Yet it didn't bother me as much as it bothers me with most other open endings - in a way this movie gets to a really satisfying closure in it self. Of course, it doesn't even begin to address even half of the questions that you might have, e.g. who is Nova, why is he doing what he's doing? Who is Alita, was her origin on the good side, or actually on the bad? Who threw her away, when and with what purpose? And what did she do all that time in Zalem? What was the Great Fall, why did it happen, who are the Martians, etc. pp.Actually you might wonder if this movie did answer any question at all, and well - probably it didn't. But never the less, we get a really satisfying end. An ending however, that cries for a sequel, and I really really really hope that we do get to see one. This is of course unclear, due to this being probably the last movie that Fox has made as Fox (i.e. not under Disney), and Boxoffice results not being as high as expected, due to probably also many negative preliminary critics that I cannot share at all.
On the negative side however, I would say that over all the story isn't reinventing anything. It's a fish-out-of-water plot, you know who the end-bosses will be and the story develops in just the direction you'd expect, with a number of precursors.
I had a lot of fun in cinemas, I was really captivated, I loved the setting, I loved the characters, the CGI, the plot as it evolved. For me this is a must see, for anyone interested in cyberpunk/steampunk-ish movies.