Showing posts with label Alita Battle Angel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alita Battle Angel. Show all posts

Saturday, February 9, 2019

Alita: Battle Angel


DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez
LEAD CAST: Rosa Salazar, Cristoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley & Keean Johnson
SCREENWRITER: James Cameron & Laeta Kalogridis
PRODUCER: James Cameron & Jon Landau
EDITOR: Stephen E. Rivkin
MUSICAL DIRECTOR: Tom Holkenborg
GENRE: Science fiction/Fantasy
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Bill Pope
DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Fox
LOCATION: USA
RUNNING TIME: 122 mins.
Technical assessment:  4
Moral assessment:  3.5
CINEMA rating:  V 13
MTRCB rating:  PG
After the cataclysmic war known as “The Fall”, Earth has become a monumental trash heap where everyone scavenges to survive, kept alive by the thought of one day finding relief in Zalem, a city of the elite high up in the sky.  One day as the compassionate cyborg scientist Dr. Dyson Ido (Cristoph Waltz) scavenges for treasure among the trash, he finds the bust of a female cyborg with a human brain, half dead.  In his his clinic he succeeds in giving it a robotic body.  The cyborg awakens but can recall nothing about her past or identity; Dr. Ido then names her Alita (Rosa Salazar), after his deceased daughter.  Alita becomes comfortable with her new body and as her unique skillset surfaces, the curious cyborg discovers that Dr. Ido is a warrior-hunter.  As the story unfolds, layer upon layer of secrets are peeled off, revealing the surprising depth of each character.
Alita: Battle Angel is the big-screen adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s manga, “Battle Angel Alita”.  With its great attention to detail and character development, the film has created a world where viewers may easily get carried away, especially if it is watched on a giant screen.  While the bleak setting, Iron City, is a veritable junkyard, the movie is not depressing; while the lead female is a robot, she is not cold.  The visuals are breathtaking; the action, wow!  Director Rodriguez’s eye for action is complemented by cleverly placed close-ups that give the story its heart.  Waltz as a kindhearted man proves his acting mettle once more in a role that’s the opposite of his usually villainous, ruthless film persona.  Salazar, on the other hand, inspires sympathy—is it due to her role, or her soulful eyes?
An aspect worth pondering in Alita: Battle Angel is the wide range of human emotions depicted.  The story is set centuries into the future—year 2563—and yet, the characters’ responses to emotional stimuli remain the same as ours today.  Note the relationship between Alita and Dr. Ido, Chiren’s maternal instinct causing her change of heart, Alita’s self-sacrificing love for Hugo, etc.  Whether it is anger, love, ambition, or hatred fueling their actions, the characters—human or cyborg—are so like us, responding the way we do now, or even as our counterparts did centuries ago as history proves.  The desire for power or dominance is still there, so is the human longing for love.  Also, man still itches for greener pastures, as the gap between society’s rich and poor, the elites and the scavengers, remains unbridgeable.  If only the externals are changed 500 years from now, is the movie saying that the human brain is the same yesterday, today and forever?  What about human existence, purpose, or destiny—will it be forever a mystery?—TRT