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-

BIRD BOX : Friday 21st December 2018

I saw 'BIRD BOX' from the comfort of my own living room watching the film on Netflix the day of its worldwide release on 21st December. Based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Josh Malerman, the film is Directed by Susanne Bier whose most recent outing as Director was for the highly acclaimed television series 'The Night Manager'. Made for US$20M the film has a limited theatrical run from 14th December before being released on the Netflix streaming service on 21st December. Within a week, Netflix had claimed that the film had seen the biggest seven-day viewership for any of its original movies to date, with over 45 million viewers. The film has received mixed or average Reviews from Critics, although Sandra Bullock's performance as the lead character has been praised.

The film opens up with a mother, Malorie Hayes (Sandra Bullock) kneeling down and speaking quickly and anxiously to her two young children. She informs them that they are about to go on a journey down a river and its going to be dangerous, and if they don't listen to her every word they will die. She also tells them that if they get separated they will die, and if they run off or cause a distraction they will die, and if they remove their blindfolds for as much as a fleeting minute they will die.

We then go back in time five years and Malorie is an expectant mother who is visited in her home painting studio by her sister Jessica (Sarah Paulson). Before setting off to the local hospital for a routine pregnancy check-up, they see reports on television that some sort of strange phenomenon across Europe and Russia is causing mass suicides on a seemingly alarming scale. The pair dismiss the story and go to the hospital. Upon leaving the clinic the pair witness a woman in the corridor smashing her head repeatedly against a plate glass window, smashing the glass and her head and face. Malorie realises that perhaps there was more to that news story than they gave it credit for. As they attempt to race away from the hospital, they see chaos erupt in the streets all around them as more and more people suicide. Distraught by the scenes and carnage unfolding in front of them, Malorie reaches into the back seat to retrieve her ringing phone, when Jessica is unnerved by something up ahead. Jessica crashes the car which comes to halt upside down. They both clamber out. Injured, Malorie is unable to stop her sister stepping in front of an oncoming speeding truck and is killed instantly.

Malorie is swept along by a fleeing crowd of people all running away from something that no one can seemingly see, hear or understand. She is pulled to safety by a group of strangers holed up in house, but in the ensuing chaos, one of those residents walks out into the street and sits in a burning car very quickly engulfing herself in flames. That was the the wife of Douglas (John Malkovich) the owner of the house. After collecting their thoughts as much as they are able under the dire circumstances, they draw the conclusion that just by virtue of looking at the creatures can cause humans to go insane and commit suicide. They cover the windows with newspapers and blankets to hide themselves from the chaos and creatures on the outside.

Days and presumably a few weeks pass by and food supplies in the house are running short. Malorie and the other holed up residents Charlie (Lil Rel Howery), Tom (Trevante Rhodes), Lucy (Rosa Salazar) and Douglas agree to drive to a local supermarket on a supply run. They paint out the windows, and use the vehicles GPS and proximity sensors to detect obstacles in the road and to guide them to their destination. Arriving at the store, but not before encountering the creatures which they manage to successfully evade with some nifty driving skills, they find an almost fully stocked supermarket which Charlie happens to work at. In the drinks aisle Douglas is in his element having found a stash of Scotch Whisky and votes to remain there indefinitely. The others however, reject his notion. Malorie comes across a bird cage containing a pair of birds, which she decides to adopt. The birds quickly validate themselves when a man crying for help from behind the loading dock door wants to gain entry. Upon opening the door the birds yelp and flap their wings violently indicating they are an early warning system against the creatures. The man allowed entry quickly attacks the group as he is seemingly under the influence of the creatures and is out to infect other humans. Charlie sacrifices himself so that the others can make a getaway.

Some time later Lucy and Felix (Colson Baker) steal the vehicle and decide to go it alone, leaving those left in the house without any means of transportation. Soon after, another heavily pregnant survivor Olympia (Danielle Macdonald) allows a seemingly unaffected and innocent wanderer, Gary (Tom Hollander) into the house against Douglas's wishes, for which he is locked up in the garage lest he should try to injure or kill their latest resident. Seemingly speaking from first hand experience, Gary refers to infected survivors who are insane and are compelled to force unaffected humans to look at the creatures, of which he has numerous pencil drawings contained in a satchel. When both Olympia and Malorie go into labour, Gary reveals himself to be one of the insane people he described. He then proceeds to remove all the coverings from the windows and attack the others within the house. Gary murders Douglas and forces Olympia, having just given birth, and another survivor Cheryl (Jackie Weaver) to look at the creatures, resulting in their deaths by suicide. Tom is able to kill Gary with a shotgun and save Malorie and the two newborns, leaving all the other survivors in the house, dead.

Fast forward five years, and Tom and Malorie are living together with the children in a seemingly relatively safe haven. Malorie calls the now five year olds only Boy (Julian Edwards) and Girl (Vivien Lyra Blair). One day they receive a return radio transmission from a survivor stating that they are well and safe at a community two days downriver and that they are welcome to join them. Tom wants to go to the community despite the dangers of the river, but Malorie fears it could be a trap.

Following the transmission, Malorie flees with the two children when a group of infected survivors locate them and attempt to kill them. Tom manages to kill all the infected, but in doing so glimpses the creatures which results in him turning his gun on himself. Blindfolded, Malorie takes the children, also blindfolded, and the two birds wrapped in a shoe box to a rowboat next to a river.

Their journey is dangerous as described by the voice at the other end of the radio transmission. After some two days having survived raging rapids, an insane infected man, and even capsizing their boat in the rapids, they are washed ashore but by now separated. The creatures tease the children and Malorie to remove their blindfolds by mimicking the voices of loved ones but are unsuccessful as the three are reunited by the sounds of each others voices, and make it through dense woodland to the community guided by the sounds of tweeting birds, just as the voice had instructed.

Upon arriving Malorie and the two children are quickly taken in, and removing her blindfold very gingerly, sees that the compound is an old school for the blind, and most members of that community are blind, rendering them immune to the creatures. She kneels down and gives the children names, Olympia for the girl and Tom for the boy, and releases the birds from their box to join the many others flying above in an enclosed atrium, that have kept them free from harm for these past five years.

This film evoked memories of M. Night Shyamalan's 2008 post apocalyptic horror thriller 'The Happening' and more recently John Krasinski's 2018 post apocalyptic horror thriller 'A Quiet Place'. This film is below par compared with the latter, and would rate just about the same as the former elevated only by the performance of Sandra Bullock who once again turns it on as the everyday woman determined to overcome adversity and look fear in the face and say FU! The film falls somewhat short on suspense, scares and any real horror elements and lingers too long in the past, not long enough in the present and not at all in the intervening five years. As for the fate outside of Malorie's small little world, we are left but to wonder, and why certain individuals are left to roam free as 'carriers' of the creatures curse but not victims of suicide, also remains unclear. If post apocalyptic thrillers are your thing, and if during these extended school Summer holidays you are looking for two hours to sit and watch such an offering from the comfort of your own lounge, you could do worse than tune into 'Bird Box', but equally there's more compelling viewing out there too.  

'Bird Box' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a potential five.

 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-