Alita: Battle Angel - A Patient Fan's Review

now I'm trying to figure out whether or not this is the first live-action adaptation of a manga that I've seen might be a Lita battle angel to say that I have been waiting for this movie for a long time would be actually quite a severe understatement I first heard that James Cameron had gotten the rights to make this as a movie and had begun work on it back when I was in college so we're talking about 15 years ago ballpark so what so like I said been waiting a long time and actually I got I was really annoyed that the existence of avatar for a while because he put this movie on hold in order to start making avatar then I was like great avatar is done he'll make battle angel and then he said I'm doing all these avatar sequels and the reason we now have the movies II step back to be producer and Robert Rodriguez came on which could have gone either way Robert Rodriguez is a director who when he's on it can deliver some really great stuff but his working with more special effects heavy stuff you're really kind of up and down like Sin City came out pretty well but a lot of the other stuff not so much so I was excited I was nervous I had a lot of very jumbled up feelings going to the theater to see this and I liked it I liked it quite a bit overall I would rate it as a pretty good now I do want to specify the way in which is pretty good cuz when you say a movie is pretty good that in my mind at least that can be one of two things it either means the whole thing just sort of played at a level of oh all right or it could be that there are some elements that were really good but there were other elements that weren't as good and then it balances out about pretty good this is the latter case so let's start with what is really good and then the reason why I'm quite happy with the movie despite some of the faults I'm gonna end up pointing out was because what I love about a leader and I think I'll just call it that because if I try and do the full title I'll keep getting mixed up as to whether I'm doing it the order of the movie does it or the manga does it cuz in the manga it's battle angel leader the movie its ally to battle angel I'm just gonna call it a leader so with a leader the reason that I love it is the character dynamics by and large particularly when it comes to Aleta and IDO the characters who in this case are played by Rosa Salazar and Kristoff vaults and they're those characters and their relationship is perfect I mean Christoph Waltz was a great gift because IDO is is the kind of character who in the hands of the wrong actor could come across as creepy and Christoph Waltz never does you have nothing but sympathy for him there's humanity just kind of radiating off of him and it it makes it work despite you know I was a few clunky bits of dialogue but that's that's an issue with the writing not with his performance he is he has a wonderful performance dynamic with Aleta and he's he's just he's really good but seriously MVP of this movie Rosa Salazar who I don't think I've ever seen in anything else before she's phenomenal like I'm astounded at how good she is in this and yes I recognized at least a portion of that is potentially tweaked by CGI animation but seriously the amount she is able to convey non-verbally through posture through looks through just a pause like a little movement of our mouth leg there's it's so alive I almost said it's so subtle it's not really but it's so finely tuned because when when you're when an actor plays a character who is gonna be this heavily CGI augmented you can often end up with one of two things much actually much in the same way as what can happen when a character has a lot of prosthetic makeup oftentimes you can either end up with an actor who just gets buried under the effects and you don't see much performance which actually unfortunately does happen with some of the supporting characters or you end up with someone who is trying to force their acting through the through the effects and they end up being over-the-top and campy and ridiculous she rides the line perfectly everything comes through but it does not feel forced or over-the-top she was mesmerizing like instantly the instant her character opens her eyes those big eyes which I got used to very quickly she communicates so much just with a look just with an expression just with taking a pause she conveys so much thought process and it's it's we I'm serious this is an astounding performance and I move and I really feel like it's not gonna end up getting the recognition it deserves partly because of the CGI augmentation probably because the movies not being as successful at the box office as I think probably I'm gonna end up wishing it was but though she cares this movie handily as far as the other performers go I don't know the actor who plays Hugo who's sort of the teenage boys somewhat romantic II and just I'll avoid spoilers as best as I can if I think I have to go there I'll warn you don't worry so Hugo's quite good again he's got really good chemistry with Aleta so that's the main thing that needs to work there you've got um Jennifer Connelly and Marshall Al Ahly as some supporting characters and I mean they bring a little bit because they're both do performers I think my Hershel ollie in particular you know brings a little bit extra into playing the world of vector but there isn't a lot to those parts I mean there isn't really a lot in the manga either so I don't want to be like oh they got it wrong well no because the manga very much focuses on Aleta in Edo as the film does as well I mentioned that there are some performances that kind of get lost in the effects I think the big one is Jackie Earle Haley who plays sort of this I forget what they called him because some of the names are a little bit different from what I'm used to from from the manga so I cannot I keep forgetting what they called him but he's the he's big hulking thing and just he's he gets buried under the effects he just doesn't come through his performances is too subtle it's too naturalistic and it doesn't read especially considering that for some of the moments to be is cathartic as they are intended to be he needs to be more intimidating than he is and part of it is that a much better performance from supporting sort of CGI augmenting character is a IDI screen playing one of the bounty hunters he's he's quite good I like him anyway I he has a very strange kind of charisma to him it's hard for me to put my finger on but I find I find him really hard to look away from I've always liked him ever since like you know saw him back on Game of Thrones as the original Daario naharis he was way better than the second guy they got to and it was so he's quite good and the effects in general are very good and let and I suppose that brings us to Rodriguez and what he brings to this he brings a fantastic flow to these action scenes and also just great the whole thing looks great but again it's kind of bolstered by elitist performance because like she's the way that she looks you're stepping out from from waking up for the first time and stepping out into a city built on garbage but looking around with such wonder and you can with no words you can tell from our performance that she's seeing the beauty in this and it's shot in a way that like yeah I guess it is all kind of cool but then also at later times when it needs to feel dark and dingy dangerous and dirty it absolutely does while still feeling like the same place and Robert Rodriguez does great work in terms of the the action scenes the pacing of them is great the choreography of them is great the way that they're shot it never gets too fancy and there's some very hectic action but I always knew what was going on the hits even though it is ultimately nine times out of ten it's pixels hitting pixels the hits felt impactful they felt like the hit they felt like they hurt and that was that was a big thing and you know given how action-heavy this is that's that's a big thing that needed to work and it absolutely does and I think in an odd way it kind of makes me annoyed that Rodriguez spent so long sort of basically working out of his garage you know a lot of stuff that he did was he built his own sort of personal special effects studio which is why a lot of his special effects were so cheap and wonky but it gave him complete control so to see him work with you know basically special effects a la James Cameron and realize oh god you know if you hadn't like sort of insisted on being able to do everything in your backyard you we could have gotten some amazing looking stuff out of you but I'm glad we got it now but there are some issues like the main problem with the thing is ultimately narrative Lee because if you're familiar with the manga it's pulling bits and pieces from about the first three volumes or so of the manga so the result is a bit of an undisciplined story it doesn't focus in as much as it really kind of needed to in order to land strictly speaking as a narrative the result is is almost picaresque in terms of how it feels like little samplings of of things but none of them are the main thrust of the story because we've got stuff worked in here with Aleta's past and history and origins which is speaking personally is the first thing I would have cut I mean also because like I find it the least interesting part of the manga - like I am fascinated by what she's doing now where she came from I honestly don't really care so at anytime the thankfully it doesn't eat up a lot of screen time but anytime that comes up like Izone doubt a bit but in terms of overall pacing so like the the first three volumes of the manga again trying not to get into spoilers on it deals initially with Aleta becoming a bounty hunter second volume deals heavily with her relationship with Hugo and third volume deals primarily with the sport of motor ball so this has all three of those and what I mean in like what it feels on disciplines so they have Aleta register as a bounty hunter which is something you know she said she wanted to do so Sally comes out of nowhere but she does that there's an action scene not long after that we never actually see her a hunter bounty like ever not even once not even a montage of it and next thing we know she's in tryouts to compete in motor ball so that's what I mean when I say there's a lack of discipline and they were probably trying to cram in a few too many narrative threads for this thing I think I think the motor ball was something to push to a sequel of course I say that but at the at the same time it's very obviously that they were trying to set up some stuff for the sequels largely having to do with allusions to a bigger villain that is ultimately gonna be dealt with later although I will say we had got way ahead glimpses of this character at a few points and I had not recognized who was playing the character until the very end of the movie I went oh okay that's kind of cool but I just unfortunately unless the the overseas box-office really blows it away this is probably not gonna get a sequel so it does annoy me that it ends on a bit of uh on a bit of a cliffhanger whereas I think you know either taking an ending note more from the first volume or the second volume of the manga either more sort of the the triumphant warrior or a more kind of melancholy tone either one of those would have worked but it tries to have both at the same time whilst also setting up a sequel and it doesn't quite pull together it doesn't fall apart but sort of after about the halfway point the narrative starts to lose steam because it kind of loses focus a bit and it's just it it just didn't know which bits of these three volumes to trim out and because I suspect the reason that both about the hyundai and the motor baller and there is for the variety of the action scenes and they are both great action scenes do not mistake me on that but I just I don't know if from a narrative perspective if it was worth it for that so whether or not this is worth it for you to rush out and see in the theater or whether it's a bit more of a way to watch it at home I think depends on what elements you really want to work if you want good strong main characters I which I do believe this has their dynamic is great I and like I found the relationship between IDO and and I leave it to basically be perfect that was exactly what I wanted as relationships so I'm really happy as a result in that the action is really good but if you are narrative focused if you need the story to sort of end in a satisfying and like everything feels complete kind of way your you may end up walking away a little bit irritated and I don't think that's a spoiler to say that it just kind of it doesn't really end so much as it stops um but not like in a hard to be continued way you know it's not matrix reloaded or anything like that but you know that that that unfortunately is is a bit of a bummer that it loses steam as it goes along but I still really enjoyed it I'm glad I saw it so Elita battle angel you seen it what did you think about it whatever your thoughts are drop something down in the comments let's talk about it whole bunch of stuff that to do down there as well because there's buttons links patreon hey I appreciate it plus other stuff to check out besides you know give it a look it's all down in the description or don't that's okay too because at the end of the day you're the council I'm just running the meetings and until next time this council is adjourned [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Council of Geeks

Views: 9,640

Rating: 4.9363956 out of 5

Keywords: alita, battle angel, live action, robert rodriguez, james cameron, christophe waltz, rosa salazar, review, adaptation

Id: pGA_WhD9Fus

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 22 2019