{"id":17810,"date":"2019-02-12T22:19:18","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T06:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=17810"},"modified":"2019-02-12T22:19:18","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T06:19:18","slug":"alita-battle-angel-looks-great-but-lacks-a-compelling-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=17810","title":{"rendered":"ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL Looks Great, But Lacks a Compelling Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/24_0006_C+-merged.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7079\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you read Japanese manga, then you might be familiar with\nthe story of the latest sci-fi epic to hit cinema screens. <em>Alita: <\/em><em>Battle<\/em><em>\nAngel<\/em> is based on one such series, which sets up a unique futuristic world\nwhere humans co-exist with cybernetic organisms. The movie certainly looks\nremarkable and features some impressive visuals. However, the creaky screenplay\nultimately prevents the final result from being anything more than a curious\noddity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Alita-Chirstoph-Waltz-1024x547.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17812\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the story begins with\ncyborg scientist Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) discovering the robotic head\nof Alita (Rosa Salazar). He quickly finds a human brain in the tangle and succeeds\nin jump-starting it. Newly awakened, Alita has no memories of life, but shows a\nnatural talent for battle. She is soon drawn to the hugely popular but deadly\nsport of Motorball as well as a friendly teenager named Hugo (Keenan Johnson). As\nAlita attempts to find out more about her origins, she discovers that guardian\nIdo moonlights as a bounty hunter. Alita also learns that Ido&#8217;s ex-wife Chiren\n(Jennifer Connelly) is involved with sinister Motorball official, Vector\n(Mahershala Ali)&#8230; and that there may be an even more sinister force pulling\nstrings in a nearby sky city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Alita-bad-cyborg-1024x517.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17814\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Curiously enough, there is a bit of an &#8220;uncanny valley&#8221;\neffect to the Alita character. While all other cyborgs are played by actors\nwhose human faces are visible on robotic bodies via digital compositing, the\nappearance of this film&#8217;s protagonist is entirely CGI\nand features oversized eyes. It&#8217;s a strange choice, given that the other unique\ncharacters look so different. Admitttedly, the all-digital character creation\nworks in some respects, as when Alita is running around and performing physical\ntasks. Yet the movie&#8217;s bigger emotional beats don&#8217;t translate nearly as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Alita-red-light-1024x537.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17813\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One supposes it could have been worse, considering how much\nof the production must have involved actors staring at blank walls and tennis\nballs. Waltz does manage to make his interactions with Alita believable, at\nleast in the wide shots (as mentioned, close-ups of Alita aren&#8217;t nearly as\nconvincing). It works in fits and starts, but the end effect leaves one detached\nand cold about the characters and their personal struggles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Alita-street-fight-1024x521.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17815\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The good news is that the action itself is impressive,\nparticularly when Alita battles other unique-looking cyborgs both in and\nunderneath the dilapidated city streets, not to mention when participating in\nan incredibly dangerous Motorball challenge. These sequences are the film&#8217;s\nmost imaginative and they jolt things to life. Director Robert Rodriguez (Sin\n City, Planet Terror, From Dusk Till\nDawn) also throws in a few fun cameos from familiar faces who have appeared in his\nprevious features. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, the story itself is a little ungainly and awkwardly\nwritten. There&#8217;s an awful lot of exposition in between the fights. While the\nmovie may be using Alita&#8217;s amnesia as a reason to bluntly explain the back\nstory, there&#8217;s still an awful lot of talking about who is doing what and why&#8230;\nand this all slows down the pacing. It also appears to be cramming too much\ninto its two-hour frame. This is particularly true during the extended\ndenouement, which quickly and clumsily wraps up one character&#8217;s story while\ntrying to set up more sequels. Those bits really don&#8217;t work as effectively as\nthey should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Alita-Battle-Angel-Close-up-1024x554.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17816\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Alita: <\/em><em>Battle<\/em><em>\nAngel<\/em> is an interesting novelty that tries to take CGI\ntechnology to a new plateau. And some of it certainly looks great. However, the\nscreenplay is something of a jumble, leaving its leads underdeveloped. The\ndrawback is that the important personal moments are lost&#8230; and many viewers won&#8217;t\nbe all that interested or excited about seeing where these characters go next. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you read Japanese manga, then you might be familiar with the story of the latest sci-fi epic to hit cinema screens. Alita: Battle Angel is based on one such series, which sets up a unique futuristic world where humans co-exist with cybernetic organisms. The movie certainly looks remarkable and features some impressive visuals. However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[197,697,1069,1070,1071,1072,4362,4684,5019,10565,11539,12935,13027,17186,17359,17772,17775],"class_list":["post-17810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-197","tag-action","tag-alita-battle-angel","tag-alita-battle-angel-film-review","tag-alita-battle-angel-movie-review","tag-alita-battle-angel-review","tag-christoph-waltz","tag-comics","tag-cyborg","tag-jennifer-connelly","tag-keenan-johnson","tag-mahershala-ali","tag-manga","tag-robert-rodriguez","tag-rosa-salazar","tag-sci-fi","tag-science-fiction"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}