Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

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Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 02-14-2019, 05:58 PM:

At the Century Del Monte Theaters, Monterey, California.

*****

Oy vey iz mir, with this movie. Trying to summarize it would take too much typing, but the gist of it is there’s this cyborg girl Alita, who three hundred years earlier had a past life on the floating city of Zalem, where she was a soldier known as “U.R.M. Berzerker #99”. Lord knows what happened to her there, because she wound up on the scrap heap on Earth, where she was found and kludged back together by the kindly Doctor Ito. She wants to get back to Zalem to piece things together and find the asshole who shitcanned her, but the only way to do that is to get really good at playing rollerball . . . or excuse me . . . motorball. Something like that. There’s a LOT more going here.

Anyway, I thought I would give this picture fifteen or twenty minutes, but I wound up staying for the whole thing. It’s pretty good and after a slow start becomes a fast two hours. The players are all very good. Alita the cyborg is a nicely drawn and sympathetic heroine, and Cristolph Waltz is excellent as her doting mechanic/father figure. The art direction and production design are all first rate and the action scenes are well directed. I recommend it.

I might add that I was amused to learn that in the year 2596, Belden Wire & Cable is still a going concern.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 02-15-2019, 06:23 PM:

CINEMA: B&B Ankeny 12 & B-Roll Bowling, Ankeny, IA
AUDITORIUM: 1, SEAT: D11
PRESENTATION: B&B GRAND Screen Recline-o-Vision with butt warmers and DTS-X and RealD 3-D images projected from freaking laser beams which I totally missed when I booked the ticket or I would have booked a different 2-D show
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Why is there an empty drink cup in my cup holder? Did they not clean the theatre last night?
RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

THE PLOT: A cyborg gets all mushy for a guy. Wackiness ensues.

This was an abandoned James Cameron project that somebody else took up and wanted to make into a James Cameron-style epic. He failed miserably, but you can see why Cameron would really like the source material. There's all sorts of borrowing in this including, as Mark noted, Rollerball, plus how to open a hatch on any ship in Star Trek, hell they even kind of ripped off Jack and Rose's "Titanic" farewell.

Still, I really enjoyed the first 3/4 of this, but then it just kind of went off the rails for me.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-15-2019, 07:01 PM:

Just the trailer creeped me out in the extreme.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 02-27-2019, 02:50 PM:

funny Sam, I thought the story progression felt predictable and all, but half way through I dug how the characters and plot went off in other directions than what I was expecting. Visually stunning in 3D Dolby Cinema - what a blast!

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 03-01-2019, 12:16 AM:

Well, this movie is certainly an... experience.

Visually stunning and absolutely action packed. I hadn't realized that it was just "part one", though -- the story just kind of stops and the credits roll so there's no resolution or actual ending; I guess we'll have to wait for a part two at some point.

It's mighty impressive and definitely worth watching.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 03-07-2019, 10:52 PM:

I just finished playing this movie for the past week and there was a grand total of 24 people who came to see it.

I'm shocked. Who'da thought a really cool movie like this would get such a poor turn-out. [Confused]

I hope the rest of you guys see more of a crowd for it than I did.

Sheesh.

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 03-12-2019, 01:16 PM:

That's a shockingly low number, and sorry to hear that, Frank.

My kids have seen it multiple times and finds it wears really well and bears repeating.

I finally saw it last night and was amazed at how original the experience was within a rather traditional good vs. evil and boy-meets-girl container. It went by quickly enough for me that the start of the credits snuck up on me. (Thankful for the warning about the abruptness of it!) Three stars out of four. And the movie plot almost feels conventional enough to betray a very difficult adaptation from the original Manga books. It will be interesting to see if Alita gets an Oscar nod in that area, as it deserves one.

A bit less violence and one expletive out and this would be a PG-rated family movie. (Yet that one guy getting yanked into the mashing machine felt like an unqualified "R" moment.)

I didn't get to see it in 3D, but everyone else in my family has, including two who typically avoid 3D but think this one was worth it.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-12-2019, 03:15 PM:

quote: Frank Cox
I'm shocked. Who'da thought a really cool movie like this would get such a poor turn-out.

I think one of the problems was simply that the character freaked people out.

While people don't have a problem looking at all kinds of monsters in a horror movie, they usually don't root for those monsters.

Combined with the less-than-great reviews, that probably kept people away. Unfortunately, without a solid fan-base you probably need some kind of other appeal for your lead character.

With an estimated budget of $170M and a gross of just under $80M in the US, this is slated to become a pretty big bomb...

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 03-12-2019, 06:12 PM:

If you add on to that the international box office total of $304,000,000 (as of Sunday), then they might just eke out a profit, after "prints" and distribution costs.