Alita: Battle Angel is in the same company as Speed Racer, Jupiter Ascending, Valerian, Ready Player One and A Wrinkle in Time. Where it boldly seeks to dazzle you with its effects, ideas and camera movements, though while it cannot be said that the filmmakers are not passionate about the material and the people on the production side were slouches, the story and ideas never come together. 

Alright, let’s plow through the plot because there are a lot of details. It is the far distant future and a man is looking through a trash heap to salvage parts. While doing so he finds the head and some of the guts of a robot (the head itself looks like that of a young girl). He takes her home and attaches a body, she comes to life and knows so very little. So Dr. Dyson Ido (Christopher Waltz) explains the ins-and-outs of the city to her, there are people and robots and people can have robotic appendages attached to them to enhance themselves. This is exposition and it feels like it, which is the worst exposition.

Alita (Rosa Salazar) herself is one of the great selling points of the movie, her skin is so near perfectly rendered, it is one of the great feats of C.G.I. animation, but her eyes size are increased to make them look like typical Anime eyes (animation produced in Japan). So there is an obvious disconnect from the reality. They clearly had a lot riding on this effect and are obviously proud of the end result having her framed in the traditional way, and letting the camera gets really close to her so you can see all the teeny tiny hairs on her skin and the individual pores as well as seeing her in slow motion so you can really soak her up from every angle and see every strand of hair gracefully move. 

A problem with her as a character is that she has rather little personality and is a perfect warrior, so we have nothing to connect with on an emotional level and nothing to root for during the action scenes because she can win. I suppose some of the things she does is cool but it’s ultimately a shallow experience.

Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali play Dr. Chiren and Vector, two people in service to Nova the ruler of the upside and who is able to transfer his consciousness into other people. Chiren was married to dr— and now builds other robots for the games and Vector funds it and has dark ambitions and pulls the strings, though he is only a bit player compared to Nova. We barely learn anything real about them, they aren’t even the biggest threat, who we also barely get to know or care about and they two seem bored whenever they are onscreen and I can’t blame them because they are given nothing to work with. What a waste of two very good actors. 

You get the sense of something deeper and more profound happening or at least the potential. Robots, technology, extravagant designs, and a big looming evil threat can, of course, lend itself to wonderful material, the manga is probably filled with these kinds of things and was probably why the filmmakers were so passionate about bringing it to life in a movie. But concept and execution are two vastly different entities. Saying that your going to create a unique, futuristic world and have an adventure playout within it is one thing, making that something engaging is another. Ultimately we have a movie with the goal to create something profound and unique like Ghost in the Shell but just ends up like the 2017 version of Ghost in the Shell.

When the characters make any decision and go about it you don’t really know them or even have a strong understanding of their motivations so when something is happening that you understand is suppose to be dramatic it is less like people forming their own destiny and rather like seeing someone else crash toys together. 

I remember days when we were able to see movies, nay, blockbusters and not feel like we had to commit for three for five more movies a decade later. When you watch Star Wars the threat is beaten, the good guys win and it ends, a satisfying movie as a whole, there are others, but they work by themselves. Those days seem to be dead for the foreseeable future as franchises are the name of the game these days. This one is one of the biggest sinners of all because this story isn’t even done by the time the credits roll, hardly anything has been accomplished, we barely have a grasp on characters and plain just dont care. 

Amongst the previously mentioned list of ambitious effects, driven movies Speed Racer is probably the best with the most outlandish, unapologetic images as well as being wise enough to have a tone where it’s tongue is firmly in its cheek. This is the new bottom of the barrel, with not even telling complete story and leaving us shortchanged an experience when we paid full price for the ticket.

(4 / 5)

Back in 2014 when I first reviewed The LEGO Movie I not only gave it full marks but also named it the best movie of that year. It was succinct, perfectly timed, deconstruction as well as perfection of a classic adventure story. So naturally, there are high expectations for the sequel.

We pick up exactly where the first movie left off, with the day won but a new threat has arrived. Strange, large blocked creatures that speak with a toddlers voice. Emmet (Chris Pratt) who just dealt with Lord Bussiness (Will Ferrell) believes he knows how to deal with these new creatures, he constructs a large heart and gives it to them as an act of good faith, they eat it, so it’s battle. But our heroes are unable to combat them and the mysterious blocks devour all the shiny constructed things, eventually, the land becomes a barren, brutal desert wasteland like that of Mad Max: Fury Road. The characters now have become hard and grizzled Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) looks out on the horizon and narrates dramatic voice-over. Meanwhile, though Emmet continues to be the happy-go-lucky, always looking to the positive guy he’s always been. Though all the other characters Benny the Spaceship Captain (Charlie Day), Batman (Will Arnett), Princess Unikitty (Alison Brie) and MetalBeard (Nick Offerman) have all adapted to this new grim environment and mentality.

One
day a ship comes out of nowhere, the characters try to bring it down
but to no avail, stepping out of said ship is General Mayhem (Stephanie
Beatriz) a tall figure in a space suit that is there to gather the
groups leaders, being that everyone is much more competent than Emmet so
she takes them leaving Emmet stranded.

Emmet seeks to
rescue his friends, he gets into space but when he collides with an
asteroid field it breaks up. Luckily he is saved by another ship, shaped
like a giant fist, piloted by the rough, manly, confident Rex
Dangervest (also played by Pratt). He is always up for an adventure,
especially one with risks and the possibility to shoot something, so he
and his crew of raptors assist Emmet on his quest.

General Mayhem takes them through the stars and to the planet of her master Queen Waterva
Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) a creature that is made of building blocks
and able to transform into…well, whatever she wants to be (get the
name now!). From a unicorn to a cloud, to something that looks like the
kid-friendly version of a Lovecraft nightmare.

Being
that all the characters return for this movie as well as introduces new
ones it is crowded. All the characters get their moment to shine and it
never loses focus on Emmet as the central character. But it seems more
rickety than the previous movie. It’s as tight as it can be but there is
just so much story to tell and so many characters to put into the mix
that it feels like their moments are more paper thin.

Like
with the last movie they abide by the mentality that if it the image
on-screen cannot be made with actual Lego’s then it is not going to be
there, so every piece you see is an actual Lego piece and could
conceivably be built. Again this time they cut down on the frame rate to
make the movements more choppy. A few times they really embrace the
fact that they are toy pieces and cut to them as little toys moving
across the screen as if on the string and the with someone making noises
off-camera.

The story and script were handled by Phil Lord and Chris Miller who wrote and directed the last movie and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.
Both have plenty of wonderful flourishes that seem to be spontaneous
moments that serve as mere surprise laughs, there are a few of these but
most of them actually tie into the overall plot or come back to serve a
purpose later on. deceptively great structure

This movie has everything that made the first movie great and expands the scale and pushes the characters forward with new questions and trials. It has big laughs throughout and is expertly written. There may be a little too much in it for its own good though how can you argue with a generous serving. If you have little children they will love the colours and fast passe, if you are older you’ll most likely be taken in but the sharp wit and clever use and subversion of troupes.

(4 / 5)

Green Book is a movie that comes along every few years. close to awards season, based on real people and with historical problems as the backdrop. Not that this should be taken as a negative for the movie, historical movies and stories dealing and explaining about racism are very important and can be some of the best movies ever, for example, To Kill A Mockingbird and 12 Years A Slave. It’s just that there is an obvious supply and demand for these movies, what matters is how well it does its job.

Our story begins in 1962 in New York. There is a nightclub that plays music and caters to all sorts, some are notorious gangsters. One of the people working the club is Frank Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) whose nickname is “Tony Lip”, he knows how to talk to the patrons and defuse tense situations and can punch out nearly anyone, he also has a talent for manipulating a situation so he gets what he wants. The nightclub closes for fixing so Tony needs to find work for a few months, he gets a message for an interview, he goes to the top of a concert hall where he meets “Doc” Don Shirley a highly acclaimed musician and a black man (Tony didn’t know this). He is planning a long, three-month concert in the deep south of America, Tony is to serve as his driver and bodyguard.

Before
the journey begins Tony has given the “Green Book” a guide book for
black people in the south. It tells them which hotels, motels, bars etc.
So he wishes his loving wife Dolores (Linda Cardellini) they get into their blue
car that the record company has provided for them that also pops out
against the mostly green environment of the South and the journey
begins.

As any pairing must be they are not an
instantly compatible. They are obviously different races, have different
body types, enjoy different things and have to deal with social
interactions completely parallel to each other. Tony has spent most of
his life in Brooklyn working shady deals, usually speaking with his
fists and getting by on working when he can. Don Shirley is articulate
and carries himself as if everything he has ridden on his flawless
dignity, he enjoys high society culture and etiquette.

Road
movies lend themselves well to characters arcs. The characters start in
one place, begin their journey, experience things and interact and face
some kind of obstacle and they either reach their destination or return
to the same place they started but changed. Being that there are
multiple stops it lets the characters experience different scenarios in
different ways, keeps them fairly brief and then in-between they are in
the car together and must discuss it. There is also a few segments of
montage to convey the overall journey and condenses the running time.

I
have to admit that this movie is predictable. We have seen many other
road movies and if I gave you the setup you can probably guess what
kinds of conversations and prejudices they will face and where they will
end up in the end. This does adhere to a form, however that does not
instantly make a movie substandard, what matters is how it is framed,
played out and if it brings anything new to the table. This very sharply
deconstructs many of the social built-in prejudices and insecurities.
Shirley is a man that has been around the world and because of the colour of his skin has learned what is important and what is actually rather superfluous.

Director Peter Farrely isn’t the name that would come to your head for a serious, human subject matter like this. He and his brother, Bobby, are the co-writers and directors for outlandish comedies such as Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, Me Myself and Irene and so on. Yet, to probably everyone’s surprise he handles the material well. There are some fun moments of banter as well as a few comedic moments and being that he also wrote the screenplay these were probably his contributions. These moments would usually cheapen this serious subject matter but here they serve for us to warm up to the characters as well as are used to intercede a serious moment or important talking point.

Green Book has a familiar and enduring setup and with leads that excels in performing their characters. It plays it safe but comes with some sharp analysis of some of the deeper things going on in society and how we perceive others and ourselves.

(3 / 5)

As I said recently, it’s never too late to make a sequel. One of the movies to cemented writer-director  M. Night Shyamalan as an auteur in the early 2000s was Unbreakable, a spin on the Superhero origin, told in a refreshing, unique way. Now, nineteen years later we’ve been given the second movie and here is the finale.

Spoiler warning ahead for those that have yet to see Unbreakable or Split.

Basically, people are born with Superpowers, like the X-Men they re just born and they have special abilities, strength, speed, agility etc. But they are somewhat subtle and very few people are even aware that these people exist or that they themselves even possess powers. But they exist and some are aware of their unique nature and use them.

James MacAvoy is the man with over twenty-three different split personalities within him (they call themselves The Horde), some of them only have a few lines while others return more frequently, the one to pay attention to is “The Beast” one of great strength and agility. Samuel L. Jackson is Elijah Prince, a genius who suffers from a condition that renders his bones extremely brittle and easy to break, which earned him the nickname “Mr. Glass” which he also adopted as his villain alter ego and the title for this movie, however he is also a mastermind with intelligence that is beyond exceptional. Bruce Willis is back as David Dunn the unbreakable man who early on in the movie the press have titled “The Observer” he cannot be injured, has exceptional strength and can even read peoples sins by touching them, however, he has a weakness, water. He doesn’t really have much to do in this movie beyond looking sad and standing stoically.

Each of them come with their own supporting character. Dunn has his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) that has supported him in his vigilante career since first discovering them and provides him intelligence via headset. Elijah has his loving mother (Charlayne Woodard) that has always believed he was special and had a big destiny. Then there’s Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), the kidnap victim of The Horde from Split but is more fascinated and sympathetic to the man with all the different personalities within his head.

Due to his actions that are revealed at the end
of Unbreakable Elijah has been placed in a psychiatric hospital for the
past nineteen years. But while The Beast is about to make victims out of
a group of young girls a battle breaks out between him and Dunn whose
been patrolling the streets keeping the neighborhood safe, it’s to a
standstill because they are taken in by a Doctor Ellie Staple (Sarah
Paulsen), that takes them to the same clinic Elijah has been residing
in.

Now all three of them are in the same mental hospital and the doctor is convinced that they all suffer from a type of delusion of grandeur and their feats of superpowers can be logically explained away. I didn’t buy it for one second, I’d seen the previous two movies, I’d seen the trailer where they clearly display inhuman abilities so these scenes didn’t work, nor do I think they’d really work on anyone else. Even for someone that hasn’t seen the previous two movies or the trailer we already see feats of strength that are beyond human abilities, so this section just doesn’t work.

Shamalyan
has taken one of the most infamous career dives in history, when he
started he was considered to be one of the most exciting
writer/directors working in the industry, but eventually, he started
turning out obvious, nonsensical and clearly indulgent products.
Recently with the movie The Visit and previously Split he seems to be
getting back on track. I don’t rate either of the two previously
mentioned movies very highly but they were definitely much more solid
than his previous outings.

This movie is filled with
“smart” characters, characters that have high I.Q. but in this, you must
ask the question “Can a writer write a character smarter than
themselves?” A writer can write dialog that can be reasearched and have
the character know all this information off the top of their heads but
what about the way they use it? If it doesnt work in the movies logic or
even in any logic then it doesnt matter and you see the failing of the
writer because they’ve created an equation that doesnt add up. Another
faily is that the reaveals are portrayed as great feats so there is a
lack of modesty which sours the expereice because you dont buy it while
the filmmaker is bigging themselves up.

One of the
most mind-boggling elements of the movie that you have to swallow is
that comic book in of themselves tell the stories of these super people.
How exactly I’m not really sure, it’s is never explained. Do the
creators know deep down about the existence of these super people? I
that their power? Is it something about the medium itself that
prophesies them?

The movie is undeniably unpredictable.
There is the classic twist that Shamalyan is known for and it’s a
pretty good one here, and it gets near the end and it’s not done with
it’s reveals, this is a movie that has a whole plot to fill it, instead
of relying on the action. However, while I was surprised during it I
wasn’t awed. Unpredictable does not equal good, there I was watching the
fate of these characters, some of which have existed for nearly twenty
years and it was just disappointing. All I really felt was that I didnt
see it coming and even if I did I didnt like it.

As an
alternative flavor for the abundance of Superhero movies we have to
choose from these days this movie is anything but paint by numbers, as
the conclusion to a movie that started in 1996 and we have been waiting
for for over twenty years it pulls some things that are just a let down,
as an analysis of myth, comic books and society itself it thinks it’s
profound while just being complicated. Though, like an M. Knight
Shamalyan movie, this is probably his best movie since…well since
Unbreakable. Starting with The Visit he has slowly reassembled himself
as a filmmaker and credit has to be given to progress.

(4 / 5)

The Transformers movies are more popular and worse than we deserve or could have predicted. Who could have guessed that we would be five movies into a film series that require over two hundred million dollars a piece to make and say absolutely nothing? They have become the bain of many critics summer season and still rake in a generous profit so this means they won’t stop getting made.

Now it has reached
the point that all long-lasting, popular franchise reach, branching out.
The main story is no longer enough so there need to be movies about the
other characters to fill in the time between the main installments.
Like with the MARVEL movies or Star Wars. So we have the popular
supporting character Bumblebee that we know was on Earth for some time
before the events of the first movie so that seems like a good enough
place to build something.

As soon as the movie opens we
see things that we have never seen before within these movies, a battle
between the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons…OK, we’ve actually
seen that a lot but this takes place on the home planet of Cybertron.
Already this movie opens uniquely, with fresh visuals. Also, the
Transformers look more like themselves than they ever have within these
movies. In Michael Bay’s movies, they were cluttered, with too many
moving parts and most of them were grey so you couldn’t easily
distinguish which giant robot was which. Here they are composed of
simpler shapes, have a distinctive silhouette, and have their own color
so you can easily register one from another. This is a good start. The
Autobots are loosing and the leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) orders a
retreat, they do so and he gives orders to his second in command B-127
(Dylan O’Brien) to go to Earth and send the signal when it is safe for
them.

Upon arriving on Earth they get the attention of a
military platoon lead by Jack Burns, played by pro wrestler John Cena. A
chase and shootout happen along with another Decepticon that followed,
in the fight B-127’s voice box gets destroyed talking away his ability
to speak. He stumbles and takes the form of a yellow Beatle Volkswaggon.

Sometime
later (1987) we are introduced to a young girl named Charlie (Hailee
Steinfeld). She wakes up to her eighteenth birthday, she gets a flowery
helmet from her mother and a book about being positive from her
stepfather. She would prefer a car of her own because that means
independence. She tries to fix a car that she and her dad would work on a
lot when he was alive but never to success. One day while browsing the
local garage she works at she finds an abandoned yellow Beatles
Volkwagon, the owner allows her to take it home as her birthday present.
This particular car is, of course, B-127. The truth is revealed pretty
quickly and because he is unable to articulate words he’s only able to
produce synthetic buzzing sounds, Charlie says “You sound like a little
bumblebee” so this is what she calls him.

Charlie likes
to listen to music, which also becomes the soundtrack for the movie and
is spirited. She has wants and is selfish, but is also a teenager so
it’s forgiven. Steinfeld plays her with fun and poignancy when it comes
to the emotional moments. John Cena pulls off the hard as nails and
snarky Military Lieutenant with great ease, he has the believable
physicality which lends him authority and has a sharp stare which is
intimidating but he is also able to balance it with some dry humor. He
also has probably the best line in the whole franchise “I mean they call
themselves Decepticons, no one thinks that’s suspicious?”

Behind the camera, as the director is Travis Knight, whose only other directing credit is Laika’s Kubo of the Two Strings but served as producer and animator on Laika’s two previous movies (The Boxtrolls
and Paranorman) as well as an animator so he knows his way around the
filmmaking process. He brings what he learned through his time in
animation taught him, a disciplined, clear mentality towards
storytelling, ability to craft likable characters and some hard-hitting
emotional moments. Animation takes a lot of effort to pull off right so
the pre-production prosses is very long and meticulous, you need to plan
and revise much more than traditional live-action movies and be sure
that almost every frame is clear. Knight brings this mentality towards
this movie and what we have is a well-crafted, slick experience.

Bee
is the lightweight compared to the other Transformers so he hits them
in their joints which are the most vulnerable places to strike and uses
his weight to flip them. This adds personality and logical grounding to
the fights. As well as this Bee has a shy body language, he’s never been
in a human house before and isn’t there to do wrong so he’s nervous and
can easily break things, this is a personality and the effects team and
storytellers have fun with his transforming abilities i.e. using it to
get through a door, only transforming one piece of his body at a time.
This is more fun and creativity than we’ve gotten in five whole movies.

On Bumblebees trail, however, are Shatter (Angela Bassett) and Dropkick (Justin Theroux) two Decepticons that know if they find him they find Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) leader of the Autobots. They are also able to transform into both land vehicles and aircraft which I thought was against the rules of Transformers no point about being nitpicky about details like this. So some of this movie’s appeal is what I liked about Ant-Man, it is a lower scale movie, still with stakes but nothing that will end with the firey, apocalyptian destruction of a city and a few neighbourhoods along the way. If the world is always at stake and a city is always toppled then we grow numb to it. So this movie, very wisely, drawn back on the destruction porn and makes it about the characters and merely peppers it wish the crashing and the smashing. Making a much more even and enjoyable experience.

When it comes to
long-lasting established characters that are passed down from one
creative to the next, like Sherlock Homes, Superheroes or Shakespeare
you will get various degrees of quality products. But these characters
and this franchise have existed from over thirty to eighty to even
hundreds of years, clearly, they are not broken and have something that
keeps them alive. Under Bay, Transformers has almost become a dirty
word, one that signifies ludicrous characters, offensive stereotypes,
and indulgence in C.G.I. destruction. But there is clearly something
enduring about these characters and this concept, they’re not broken,
merely mishandled.

Bumblebee is the best Transformers movie and is better than it deserves to be considering its company. It is fun, creative, sharp and clear. It is the best movie to have Transformers in it since the original in 1986.