Alita: Battle Angel is like inviting all the coolest people to a Sunday afternoon kid's party.
Because the cast is there, but they get stuck in the muddy story lines and overshadowed by the monumental effects, which is a pity, really, because it's quite a cast. Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Christoph Waltz, Ed Skrein... and a cameo by Spoiler Alert!? In a movie directed by Robert Rodriguez and produced by James Cameron!?
You'll go for the CGI but you'll stay for the CGI because that's really all there is. The story, as is often the case with Rodriguez films, is a little all over the place and the plot changes more often than a model in a cheap fashion show. Then, once he's finally decided on an ending, he has to rush to get there before the film ends so the last 20 minutes has to hold all of the plot developments before giving up and deciding to prepare for the worst and hope for a sequel.
PS [and minor spoiler alert]: I did have some questions concerning the human boy and his relationship with with the cyborg teen. Because we saw her naked enough to know that she's as anatomically incorrect as a Barbie Doll, so... she has no port into which he might insert his flesh drive?
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@saint-pauly I was wondering the same thing, actually :D I ended up accepting that if she doesn't have the parts she probably doesn't need the pleasuring, and the other way round there are lots of other ways to pleasure a guy ;)
Life is a pretty interesting movie that is basically a survival movie with elements from horror and thriller that is not afraid to have some drastic scenes (some of the people in the cinema left when the first dead occurred). However, these scenes are scarce. The Alien looks great, far better than I expected from the trailers.
Most of the time this movie keeps you on the edge, it is pretty captivating - the acting is great, however I found the characters to be a bit shallow and would have loved a bit more insights and development. Never the less, the crew is likeable and you do care for them which makes the story of course much more thrilling. The ideas are in part pretty innovative and the filming is great - so is the soundtrack. So all in all a good movie. However, shortly before the end, I did guess what would happen and it did, which I consider to be quite a bummer. However, the way they shot it, was still enjoyable - and again, the music for the end is ingeniously picked.
This is why I award the movie 9/10. It was fun watching from beginning to end, and I will love watching it again some times.
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@toni253 Sorry for getting back to you so late. I've seen this movie in a Sneak Preview (should have added that to the Review - I've added it to my Sneak Preview List though ;) ). If you don't know what that is: It's a pre-cinema-release screening of the movie in cinemas, you get the ticket really cheap (in Germany it's around 5€, where a normal ticket costs around 12-18€) - the catch: You don't know what movie is shown. Sometimes it's something big, sometimes something unknown, sometimes comedy sometimes horror...
Reminiscent of The Florida Project, only with more cock fighting and child abuse.
I'm torn between hating this film because the script was bad or because Imogen Poots was good. If the story truly was poor then that's why the film upset me so. But if, as I suspect, Poots' performance was so true that her character infuriated me, then the film has to be qualified as a success for making me feel something.
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@saint-pauly Haven't seen this one yet, but up to now I was always really excited about Poots so I would strongly think it's the second reason :D Looking forward to this movie
