WAR MACHINE : Tuesday 24th February 2026

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'WAR MACHINE' at my local multiplex earlier this week, and this Australian and US Co-Produced Sci-Fi action thriller is Co-Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Patrick Hughes whose previous feature films efforts take in his debut with 'Red Hill' in 2010, which he would follow up with 'The Expendables 3' in 2014, 'The Hitman's Bodyguard' in 2017, 'The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard' in 2021 and 'The Man from Toronto' in 2022. This film was released two weeks ago in Australia before streaming on Netflix from 6th March onward, and has so far grossed US$29K.

The film opens up on the outskirts of Kandahar, Afghanistan where a small platoon of soldiers arrive in their Humvee's and armoured vehicles. The soldiers all exit their vehicles and a nameless combat engineer (Alan Ritchson) saunters up to his younger brother (Jai Courtney) who is under the bonnet on another vehicle with a can of 'Stop Leak' trying to fix it with a colleague. The pair embrace after some playful banter, and one of other soldiers asks if the pair know each other. We're brothers comments one,  as seen by the matching tattoo's running down their arms 'DFQ' in a rectangular box outline - standing for 'Don't Fucken Quit'. The younger brother then comments that the pair should be out there on the front lines rather than nurse maiding the locals, and how about they join the Ranger Assessment and Selection Programme (RASP) with a chance to gain entry into the 75th Ranger Regiment, as they talked about when they were younger. The older brother says that those days are gone and he's too old for that, but then he reluctantly agrees. As he turns away, the Taliban strike them hard with rapid mortar fire, destroying a number of vehicles and killing just about all the platoon. The older brother has a large shard of shrapnel embedded in his leg, which he pulls out, gets to his feet and surveys the carnage all around. He finds his brother still barely alive, lifts him up over his shoulder and limps away. 

Fast forward two years, and the older brother is on a bus with a whole bunch of other hopefuls making his way through the Colorado wilderness to the RASP training camp. Upon entry, all recruits are assigned a number by which they'll be recognised, his is #81, and they are told that throughout their eight week rigorous training programme they will be subjected to physical, mental and emotional hardship, and only the strongest of the two hundred or so hopefuls will make it through to the final test of their abilities - The Death March. And so what follows is a montage of each of those eight weeks of training as the recruits are put through their paces, and we see the mud, blood, sweat, tears, orders barked through a loud hailer and the sheer exhaustion etched on the face of the ever dwindling number of recruits as week on week many are rejected and are sent packing. 

In the final week of training the recruits left are given an exercise to carry two heavy dumb bells underwater in a swimming pool for as far as they can walk and hold their breath. All of the other recruits succumb fairly early on and rise to the surface gasping for air. Not #81, however. He continues but blacks out having had a recurring vision of him carrying his dying brother through the desert in Afghanistan. He is yanked out of the pool unconscious, but is revived. This results in him being hauled in front of the Camp Commanding Officer Major Sheridan (Dennis Quaid) and Army Officer Torres (Esai Morales), who both tell him that despite his impressive history of service he is a potential liability, and quite frankly is too old to be leading a crack team of Rangers potentially. Sheridan gives him a pre-written letter of voluntary discharge, and asks him to sign his release paper. #81 stands up and says that he just want's to get across the finish line after the Death March, to which Torres responds that 'it's not the finish line, it's the starting line'. #81 responds with that he's going to join his other recruits on parade.

And so ten or so recruits make it through to the final test of strength, stamina, strategy and support for one another - The Death March. Given their orders they have 24 hours to make it back and #81 is assigned team leader, before being choppered in on two Blackhawk helicopters. A few hours after they are dropped off, they rest up for 20 minutes. During their resting they are startled by a sudden eruption of sound and blinding light travelling at great speed along a river, before all trace of the disruption is gone. Continuing their mission they soon come across the possible cause of the commotion. What appears to be some sort of huge metallic like structure lies half buried in the river bed. Thinking that it is some new Army tech, that the enemy Cadre have planted there as part of their mission, they decide to blow a hole into it using explosives to gain entry. Retreating to a safe distance they detonate but when the smoke clears there is not even a scratch on the surface. At which point the heavily armoured, mechanised and standing upright the towering machine unleashes all hell on the recruits, at first scanning the area for signs of life and then delivering with pin point accuracy a hail of high tech bullets, fire and bombs.

What follows is a mission to survive this marauding monster killing machine, as a number of recruits are taken out, or die when falling end over end down a steep cliff face or attempting to traverse a fast flowing river, or driving through a steep rocky valley while being chased down by said machine that is hell bent on taking out every last one of them. In the end it is #81 who saves the day at a mine site using a giant bulldozer and several sticks of dynamite to thwart the machine once and for all, and he does so successfully . . . of course! 

Walking back to camp carrying another recruit #7 (Stephan James) who suffered a compound fracture to his leg he slumps down at the finish line, but the 24 hour period has since long lapsed. He is greeted by Sheridan and Torres who explain that they lost 75% of their men in an attack by these machines and that they have appeared the world over destroying everything and everyone in their wake. Sheridan asks #81 if he can shed any light on how to overcome these machines, to which he responds in the affirmative saying that if you block off the top of the machine with rocks or sand for example, just as he did at the mine site, then this causes them to over heat dramatically, and ultimately explode. Sheridan says that he may just have saved the planet. 

#81 is seen then giving a pep talk to a team of Rangers to motivate them as they go into battle to save Earth, before joining them aboard a Blackhawk helicopter, and promptly falling asleep as the pilot asks the other Rangers if anyone knows his name.

With 'War Machine' Writer and Director Patrick Hughes hardly reinvents the wheel here, but he does lean heavily into the macho all guns blazing man versus otherworldly being movies that trademarked the late 1980's and early 90's, and in particular I'm thinking the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner 'Predator' here. Alan Ritchson plays the stoic no-nonsense by the book DFQ wannabe Ranger with a sense of realism and believability, and the action sequences are staged in real terrain to add to the authenticity of the scenes being played out. This is not an original film by any stretch, but it does offer the viewer 107 minutes of blood, sweat, tears, explosions and high octane action to warrant your consideration, if this kind of movie floats your boat. and is polished enough to satisfy the harshest critic in this era of green screen technological wizardry that seems to bombard our screens all too frequently these days. 

'War Machine' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE SUICIDE SQUAD : Tuesday 19th October 2021.

I finally got around to seeing 'THE SUICIDE SQUAD' on the big screen now that cinema's have reopened across greater Sydney in the past ten days or so, following almost four months of COVID-19 forced lockdown. Written and Directed by James Gunn, this standalone sequel to 2016's 'Suicide Squad' (Directed by David Ayer) is the tenth film in the DCEU (DC Extended Universe). Gunn's previous film making offerings include his directorial debut in 2006 'Slither', 'Super' in 2010, 'Guardians of the Galaxy' in 2014 and 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' in 2017, with 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' currently filming and due in 2023. 'The Suicide Squad' was released in the UK in late July, and in the US in early August while streaming on HBO Max for a month starting the same day. It has generated positive critical reviews, although has been a Box Office let down recouping just US$168M so far from its production budget outlay of US$185M.

Here then, A.R.G.U.S. Director (Advanced Research Group Uniting Super-Humans) Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) assembles two Task Force X teams, known as the Suicide Squad that consist Belle Reve penitentiary inmates (a high security metahuman prison), who reluctantly agree to carry out missions for Waller in exchange for having ten years shaved off their sentences, while at the same time having explosive devices injected into their necks which Waller can activate at any given time should the need arise. The teams are sent to the island nation of Corto Maltese, located off the South American coast, after its government is overthrown in a military led coup by an anti-American regime. They are tasked with destroying the Nazi-era laboratory, Jotunheim, which holds a secretive experiment known as 'Project Starfish' as well as conducting clandestine experiments on human subjects, led for the past thirty years by lead scientist Gaius Grieves aka The Thinker (Peter Capaldi). 

The first team is led by Waller's subordinate Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and comprises Brian Durlin aka Savant (Michael Rooker), George 'Digger' Harkness aka Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Cory Pitzner aka T.D.K. (The Detachable Kid) (Nathan Fillion), Gunter Braun aka Javelin (Flula Borg), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Richard 'Dick' Hertz aka Blackguard (Pete Davidson), Mongal (Mayling Ng) and Weasel (Sean Gunn). They are almost entirely wiped out by the Corto Maltese military upon landing, with only Harley Quinn and Rick Flag escaping the fray. This distraction allows the other team to enter the country undetected, from a beach on the other side of the island. The second team is led by assassin Robert DuBois aka Bloodsport (Idris Elba), who accepted the mission in order to prevent his daughter Tyla (Storm Reid) from being incarcerated at Belle Reve, and consists of Christopher Smith aka Peacemaker (John Cena), King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), Abner Krill aka Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), and Cleo Cazo aka Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior). 

After Flag is deemed to be still alive albeit being held captive, Bloodsport and his team systematically kill all those guarding the campsite only to discover that Flag is sat relaxing and enjoying a cold beer with the leader of a group of rebel soldiers fighting the resistance against the new regime Sol Soria (Alice Braga). Despite all of Soria's foot soldiers and resistance fighters being killed off, she agrees to assist them. 

Harley Quinn survives the attack on the first team and is taken captive by the Corto Maltese government, after killing the new President Silvio Luna (Juan Diago Botto) with whom she had a one night stand during which she learned from him of the new regime's plans to use Project Starfish against other nations, most notably America, Russia and China. Mateo Suarez (Joaquin Cosio) the Major General of Corto Maltese interrogates Quinn by having her strung up and goaded with an electric cattle prod to the stomach. In the Corto Maltese capital, the second team captures the Thinker, the lead scientist in charge of Project Starfish, in a bar and is ushered out the back door by Ratcatcher 2 and Polka-Dot Man just as the military arrive and detain Bloodsport, Peacemaker and Flag. Needless to say it doesn't end well for the three military guards escorting their three new prisoners in the back of an armoured vehicle or the two upfront in the driver and passenger seats. Ratcatcher 2, Polka-Dot Man, King Shark, the Thinker and Milton (an Associate of Task Force X) arrive in a beat up old Toyota bus to retrieve Bloodsport, Peacemaker and Flag.

Meanwhile, Quinn using the power of her thighs strangles her interrogator and using the dexterity of her foot retrieves the padlock key from the now dead interrogator, turns herself upside down, inserts the key into the padlock and turns the key so unlocking it and freeing herself. She then goes on a killing spree wiping out every guard who happens to be in her path either in a hail of bullets, or using the golden javelin bequeathed to her by Javelin just before he died on the beach a couple of nights ago, or by breaking necks from some accurately landed high kicks or savage punches. You never should underestimate the wrath of a woman scorned! 

And so Harley successfully escapes and joins the others, who use the Thinker to gain access to Jotunheim. As the Squad rigs up the facility with explosives, Flag and Ratcatcher 2 enter the laboratory with the Thinker, where they witness the fruits of all of his clandestine human experiments. He tells them that Project Starfish is Starro the Conqueror, a giant alien starfish that is able to create thousands of smaller versions of itself to kill people and take control of their minds and bodies. Starro was brought to Earth by the US government, who have been secretly funding experiments on him in Corto Maltese for the past thirty years and using thousands of its citizens as test subjects. Upon learning this, Flag decides to leak a hard drive containing evidence of this news but is killed by Peacemaker who is under secret orders from Waller to cover up the US's involvement in the experiments, and the existence of Starro.

Meanwhile, a skirmish between the Squad and the Corto Maltese military lead by Major General Suarez results in Polka-Dot Man accidentally setting off the explosives prematurely. As the facility slowly begins to implode and fall apart, Peacemaker catches up with Ratcatcher 2 and is poised ready to kill her for knowing the truth about Starro, but Bloodsport shoots him instead and takes the drive, so sparing Ratcatcher 2. 

Starro escapes from the now destroyed laboratory, kills the Thinker and the majority of the military personnel on the ground, and begins taking control of the island's population by releasing thousands of smaller starfish which latch onto the faces of the victims, so suffocating them almost immediately before taking control of their minds and bodies at which point they are revived - zombie like. Waller tells the Squad that their mission is complete now that Jotunheim is destroyed, but Bloodsport chooses to ignore her and leads his teammates in battling Starro, while Waller is knocked out by one of her subordinates using a golf club across the back of the head, back at Task Force X HQ to prevent her from executing the squad. 

During the battle, Polka-Dot Man is killed, Harley pierces a hole in Starro's eye using the javelin, and Ratcatcher 2 summons the city's rats to chew the alien to death from the inside. With the military diverted, Soria takes control of the government by gunning down all of the corrupt officials and pledges democratic elections. Bloodsport forces Waller to release him, Harley Quinn, Ratcatcher 2 and King Shark from their imprisonment, and to swear not to go after his daughter Tyla, in exchange for keeping the contents of the drive confidential to which she has little choice but to agree. The remaining Squad is airlifted out of Corto Maltese.

It's easy to see where Director James Gunn filtered away a production budget of US$185M, and it's equally as easy to see why this film has yet to recoup that initial investment. 'The Suicide Squad' is a silly film full of largely one dimensional characters that we have very little investment in by way of back story apart from one or two glib sentences in passing from the main characters; there is plenty of cussing and swearing; the humour seems aimed mostly at fifteen year old boys; there is lots of blood and gore; and the action sequences are so over the top that it really does remind you that you're watching a comic book adaptation after all. As for the giant alien starfish, Starro, well that reminded of the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from the 1984 'Ghostbusters' film, just a little more menacing. On the positive side, Gunn's absurdist direction shines through in this no holds barred, fast paced, ultra violent, piece of nonsense that doesn't take it self too seriously, has moments of sardonic humour, and is visually everything you would expect from a movie such as this. Worth watching on a big cinema screen just for the spectacle of the action sequences which Gunn delivers with aplomb and of which there are plenty to satisfy the most die hard fans of the genre. The film also stars Taika Waititi as Ratcatcher, the father of Ratcatcher 2 who is dead but is seen in memory flashbacks by his daughter. Also, remain in your seat for the post-credits sequence.

'The Suicide Squad' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

HONEST THIEF : Tuesday 27th October 2020.

'HONEST THIEF' which I saw earlier this week, is an M Rated American action thriller Directed, Co-Produced and Co-Written by Mark Williams in only his second film making outing following 2016's 'A Family Man', although he has twenty-nine Producer credits to his name and three as Writer. Released Stateside last week, the film has so far grossed US$13M and has garnered mixed or average Reviews so far. 

Calling him the 'In-and-Out Bandit' because meticulous career bank thief Tom Carter (Liam Neeson) has stolen US$9M from twelve small-town banks across seven States while successfully managing to keep his identity a secret, and therefore keeping the Police authorities at bay for the past nine years following his life long career in bomb disposal with the Marines where he learned and honed his very particular set of skills. 

One day Carter walks into a rental self storage unit business looking to rent a unit, when he is greeted by Annie Sumpter (Kate Walsh) on the other side of the counter. She is a psychology graduate student divorced a couple of years ago, and there is instant chemistry between the pair. We then fast forward one year and Carter is showing Annie around a empty house that he has his eye on to buy, at the same time asking her if she will move in with him. It has now been a year and he says that he can think of no one with whom he would rather spend the rest of his life with. She agrees. Carter also says that there is something else he needs to tell her, but Annie has had enough surprises for one day, and it will have to wait she replies. He in turn replies it can wait. 

Carter is ready to come clean about the string of his robberies and the US$9M he has stashed away, never having spent a single dime of the money he has stolen. He picks up the phone from a hotel room where he is staying and dials the FBI and is ultimately put through to Agent Sam Baker (Robert Patrick). Initially, Baker is disbelieving of Carter's story saying that they often receive crank calls from people claiming to be the 'In-and-Out Bandit', so why should they have any faith in his story. Carter says that he wants to strike a deal for coming clean and handing himself over to the authorities with the US$9M stolen returned in full. He wants a reduced sentence down to two years, within a facility less than two hours drive from Boston, and full visiting rights. When Baker asks why - Carter simply says for love - he has met a woman with whom he wants to spend the rest of his life peacefully without his criminal past hanging over his head. 

And so Baker, still skeptical, sends a couple of his Agents to conduct an initial interview with Carter to determine is he is for real. There is Agent John Nivens (Jai Courtney) and Agent Ramon Hall (Anthony Ramos), who come knocking on the hotel room door later the next day. Asking if Carter can prove his story he recounts how he single handedly conducted his robberies, the banks he chose, the methods he used, and that his stolen cash is to be found in a secure self storage unit facility. Carter willingly hands over the key, gives the Agents the address and patiently awaits their return once they have located the stash of cash. At the storage unit facility, the Agents sure enough find the cash, but rather than take it in as evidence they elect to hold onto it for themselves to fund their retirements. 

They return to the hotel to meet with Carter and say they located the cash, with the intention that they will shoot him dead making it looks as though the Agents acted in self defence. Carter says that those boxes contained US$3M and there is still another US$6M stashed elsewhere (just as an added security measure). But, their plan is foiled when Agent Baker comes knocking on the door looking to question Carter for himself. When suspicions are raised, Nivens shoots Baker dead. In the ensuing scuffle, Carter and Nivens crash out the window two storeys up, landing on top of each other on the ground with Annie who has just arrived on the scene to surprise Carter with her visit. 

Carter and Annie drive off at speed with Nivens and Ramos giving chase. Meanwhile, Agent Tom Meyers (Jeffrey Donovan) arrives on the scene to survey the corpse of his partner Baker. Meyers now gets involved in the hunt for Carter, vowing to bring Baker's murderer to justice. What follows is a cat and mouse chase across the streets of Boston involving shoots outs, fist fights, car chases and car smashes as Carter seeks to clear his name and gain some sort of confession out of Nivens and Hall. Nivens is intent on killing off Annie who is a material witness to the pair of Agents loading boxes (of cash) from the storage facility into the back of their car, which she also has on a memory stick from the on site camera recordings. Nivens confronts Annie at the storage facility and a fight breaks out with Nivens getting stabbed in the leg with a pair of scissors and Annie getting knocked out cold, and almost a bullet to the head were it not for Hall intervening at the crucial moment. 

Carter arrives after the fact and rushes an unconscious Annie to the hospital for emergency treatment. Later Carter ambushes Hall at his home. Hall confesses that he is the reluctant partner in all of this, and gives up the memory stick which he secured from Annie while he frisked her when she was unconscious - a fact unknown to Nivens. Hall also states that Nivens is going to kill Annie at the hospital and that Carter should get her out of there immediately. Hall also gives over the details of the safe house where the money is stashed. When Nivens rocks up to the hospital with Hall, he orders Hall to commit the kill, but he refuses. So Nivens goes in and sees that Meyers is sat by her bedside, waiting for her to come round for questioning. Upon seeing Meyers he leaves. 

Annie by now has recovered in the comfort of a hotel room and refuses to leave saying that she wants to be in on the act to see Carter clear his name. She is present in the car when Carter blows up Nivens home yet deliberately sparing him his life. He then follows Nivens to the safe house knowing full well that he intends to make a run with the money. Carter enters with Hall, holding them both a gun point. Hall comes clean to Nivens about the memory stick, at which Nivens turns on Hall with Nivens ultimately plugging Hall with bullets killing him outright. A gunfight erupts between Carter and Nivens, with Carter sustaining a non life threatening bullet wound to his right side. Nivens escapes in his car with his stash of US$3M. 

Carter calls Nivens on his mobile phone while also tracking his journey. He warns Nivens that there is a hastily assembled improvised explosive device located directly under this car seat, and because it was so hastily assembled it is likely to be unstable. If he leaves his seat it will explode, even if he sneezes it could explode - any sudden movement, and potentially boom, they'll be scraping off bits of Agent Nivens from the road for weeks. The bomb squad arrive, the street is cordoned off, and the device is disarmed although with no detonator installed it would have been impossible for the bomb to explode. Nivens is escorted from the car and immediately placed under arrest by Meyers and two other Agents standing by. 

Following this, later that night back at FBI HQ, Meyers receives a voice recorder (dropped into his office by Annie) which recorded the conversation between Nivens and Hall before the gunfight at the safe house, proving Carter's innocence in the death of Agent Baker. Carter turns himself in, with Annie looking on, as Meyers promises to try to get a lighter sentence for him.

This film hardly ranks as one of Neeson's best, but it is a serviceable, passable yet almost instantly forgettable offering that sees the sixty-eight year old action star doing what he does best with his particular set of skills. The plot is a little lame verging on the romantic action crime genre that is saved by the convincing performances from Neeson, Walsh, Courtney and Donovan, but other than this the dialogue is questionable, the action set pieces you have seen done a hundred times before and the story moves along at such a pace that there is hardly any time to build up the suspense factor. A low on thrills, no frills by the numbers film that has a few saving graces that would elevate this to a middle of the road offering that has been the trademark of Neeson's career of the last fifteen years or so. 

'Honest Thief' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

ALITA : BATTLE ANGEL : Tuesday 19th February 2019.

I saw 'ALITA : BATTLE ANGEL' earlier in the week. This American cyberpunk action film is Directed by Robert Rodriguez, and Co-Produced and Co-Written for the screen by James Cameron based on the Japanese manga artist Yukito Kishiro graphic novel 'Gunnm' (aka 'Battle Angel Alita'). Going back to 2000, Kishiro's manga was brought to the attention of James Cameron by Guillermo del Toro who so liked what he saw and read that he immediately registered a domain name for the film, and by 2003 was announced as Director on a feature length live action film. Then Cameron's 'Avatar' got in the way and it was then slated for a 2009 release. In 2010 Cameron stated that the film was still in development but no plans existed as to a release date. In 2013 he set a Production start date of 2017 and in the meantime Robert Rodriguez was in discussions to Direct if he could condense Cameron's script and sizeable notes into a workable Screenplay. Filming began in late 2016 with Rodriguez Directing with Cameron Producing, and a budget of somewhere between US$150 and 200M. Digital effects were provided by Peter Jackson's New Zealand based Weta Digital, amongst others. The film was released in the US last week too, has so far recouped US$156M of its circa US$180M production budget, and has generated largely mixed or average Reviews so far. If the film proves commercially successful ultimately, this will be the first instalment in a franchise that will see at least two sequels reportedly.

Set some five hundred years in the future, following the catastrophic global war known at 'The Fall' of some three hundred years previously, the abandoned disembodied 'core' of a female cyborg, with a still intact human brain, is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz), a compassionate cyber-doctor. Ido takes the remnants of the upper body back to his workshop come lab and fits her out with a new body, one he had previously built for his disabled daughter, who died before he was able to give it to her.

When the girl awakens in an upstairs bedroom, she is surprised by her fully functioning body and takes a few moments to find her feet and get accustomed to her new and strange surroundings. She ventures downstairs and is greeted by Ido and his assistant. The cyborg girl has no recollection of her past life at all, not even her name. Ido calls her Alita (Rosa Salazar) - after his dead daughter.

Ido takes Alita out into the street where she gets her first taste of her new world and all the hustle and bustle of the metropolis that is Iron City. Pretty quickly Alita befriends Hugo (Keean Johnson), who harbours dreams of moving to the wealthy sky city of Zalem that hovers just a few kilometres above Iron City. A few days later Hugo introduces her to the competitive sport of Motorball - the street version as opposed to the grand spectator arena battle royale race where cyborgs fight to the death (kind of a more up to date take on 1975's 'Rollerball').

One day Ido comes home with a badly injured arm. A few nights later, Alita follows Ido as he leaves the house carrying a huge case and subsequently discovers that Ido is a 'Hunter-Warrior' when they are set upon by three cyborg assassins led by Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley). In the ensuing attack Ido is injured. Alita's instincts click in and she attacks the cyborgs, killing two of them and severely damaging Grewishka, who retreats underground. Despite Alita re-igniting her skill in the ancient martial art of 'Panzer Kunst', Ido discourages her from becoming a Hunter-Warrior. 

Later, out on an expedition with Hugo and two of his friends to the outskirts of the city and through a forest Alita is taken to a downed space ship resting overgrown and half submerged in a lagoon. Hugo tells her that it is a relic of 'The Fall' but Alita is drawn to the ship, jumps in the lagoon and seeks to gain entry. She does and emerges on the inside where the controls of the ship spring to life as if Alita is a charged battery needed to power it up. In it, she finds and brings home to Ido a 'Berserker body' which Alita begs Ido to fit onto her. Ido refuses, saying it is a relic of the past, she now has a new life and besides its an unknown quantity that could do more harm than good. This angers Alita, so she promptly registers herself as a Hunter-Warrior.

Alita and Hugo then make for the Kansas Bar, a local hang-out for the Hunter-Warrior community to ask others to help her take out Grewishka, but they refuse. There Zapan (Ed Skrein) an acclaimed cyborg Hunter-Warrior picks a fight with Alita and comes off worse. As a fight breaks out and mayhem ensues across the crowded bar, an upgraded Grewishka storms into the bar and challenges Alita to a rematch, stating that he had been ordered by Nova, his boss, to destroy her. At the same time Ido arrives on the scene.

Despite her bravery and proven fighting skills, Alita's body is sliced up by Grewishka's bladed fingers before she blinds him with her left arm. Ido, Hugo, and McTeague (Jeff Fahey), another Hunter-Warrior who leads a pack of robot killer dogs, force him to retreat. Ido has no option now but to transplant Alita onto the Berserker body, which automatically begins to interface with her core system.

Kitted out with her brand new shiny all singing all dancing Berserker body, Alita enters a Motorball tryout race as a means to send Hugo to Zalem with the winners proceeds. Ido discovers that the other contestants are Hunter-Warriors and wanted cyborgs hired by Vector (Mahershala Ali), an entrepreneur working under Nova, a powerful Zalem scientist, to kill her. He warns Alita, and as the race gets underway, she dispenses with many of the contestants with her superior combat skills and evasive techniques.

Meanwhile, Hugo is being hunted by Zapan, after he frames Hugo for murdering a cyborg - a charge punishable by death. Hugo calls on Alita for help. She locates Hugo just as Zapan arrives and reveals to her that Hugo has been attacking cyborgs and stealing their body parts for Vector to transplant onto other contestants in his Motorball games. Zapan mortally wounds Hugo and cordially informs Alita that Hunter-Warrior law dictates that she must either now kill Hugo or let Zapan finish him off.

Chiren (Jennifer Connelly), Ido's ex-wife, also a master cyborg engineer and in cahoots with Vector as a means to relocate herself to Zalem, is looking on, and is prompted by a flood of emotion to save Hugo by attaching his head to Alita's all powerful cyborg heart in order to keep his brain functioning. Zapan attempts to stop Alita from leaving and she slices part of his face off with his prized sword, which she claims as her own.

Back at Ido's cyborg surgery, he transplants Hugo's head onto a cyborg body, and then promptly advises Alita that Hugo's actions were based on the fact that he would be able to eventually buy his way into Zalem, which quite simply was not the case. Ido confides that this was a lie fabricated by Vector for his own ends, and that citizens of Iron City are unable to gain entry into Zalem unless they become a Motorball champion. Alita decides to confront Vector, who is being mind-controlled by Nova. Alita arrives at Vector's high rise penthouse suite and through Vector, Nova reveals to Alita that Chiren has been harvested for her vital organs and then orders Grewishka who has scaled up the outside of the building to reach them, to kill her. Alita battles Grewishka again and this time, thanks to her new powerful Berserker body, finally kills him by slicing his re-modified body clean in half, then stabs Vector, communicating with Nova through Vector's dying eyes that he made the mistake of underestimating her.

Ido communicates to Alita that Hugo has fled and is desperately attempting to climb one of the supporting tubes that binds Zalem to Iron City, in a seemingly vain attempt to reach the place of his dreams. Alita gives chase, catches up and pleads with Hugo to return with her. Hugo ventures ever upward and in doing so Nova releases a razor spiked defencive ring that slices through Hugo's body sending his various body parts into the air. Leaping after him, Alita is unable to prevent Hugo from falling to his death. Some months later, and Alita is the star champion of the Motorball arena. As she walks into the packed stadium greeted by the cheering crowd of spectators, she points her sword towards Zalem, while Nova (unmasked for the first time to reveal Edward Norton in an unspeaking cameo role) watches her from above. 

There is no doubt that 'Alita : Battle Angel' is a feast for the senses, a visual spectacle, and an achievement in world building that offers the audience all the latest in CGI technology writ large with enough slicing and dicing violence and flailing body parts to keep any genre die hard fan in clover.  And, on that level the film delivers in spades. Rosa Salazar puts in a convincing enough performance too as our rebirthed and then born again protagonist Alita, but as for the other human characters they are under cooked, and the others are nothing more than human heads perched atop various heavily customised cyborg killing machines. The story is nothing we haven't seen a hundred times before and as such plays out predictably saved only by various digitally rendered action set pieces to help things move along apace. All that said, this film is a worth a look and worth catching on the big screen - just don't go in with too high an expectation. Michelle Rodriguez and Jai Courtney also cameo.

'Alita : Battle Angel' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-