Movie Review: Alita Battle Angel

Alita Battle Angel (2019) 

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Written by James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis

Starring Christoph Waltz, Rosa Salazar, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earl Haley

Release Date February 14th, 2019

Published February 14th, 2019

Alita Battle Angel has been the dream of director-producer James Cameron for a number of years. While he’d placed the project on the backburner to focus on his Avatar franchise, Cameron never stopped loving Yukito Kishiro’s unique comic universe. Though he eventually walked away from directing Alita Battle Angel, Cameron can be credited for keeping the idea alive as a film property and that life is now realized with director Robert Rodriguez bringing Alita to the big screen. 

Alita Battle Angel is a CGI part live action adventure starring unknown newcomer Rosa Salazar as the titular Alita. Alita is a cyborg warrior who was found mostly dead and forgotten in a junkyard by Dr Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz). Dr Ido put Alita back together inside the cyborg body that he’d once intended to give to his daughter. In this body, Alita is essentially, in many ways just a teenage girl but because of her cyborg heart, she has a quickness and fighting acumen that rivals any man. 

Slowly, Alita begins to regain her memory. After a particularly dramatic and violent moment in which she realizes she has serious violent tendencies, Alita remembers that she was once a warrior and now she wants to put that side of herself to good use as a bounty hunter. This is something Dr Ido strongly opposes but he cannot stop here. At the same time, Alita has also begun entering a romantic relationship with a flesh and blood human named Hugo (Keean Johnson). 

Both Hugo and Dr Ido have secrets that they are keeping from Alita, secrets that will be revealed and shape the early plot of Alita Battle Angel. It’s these secrets that tie in the other supporting players in this adventure including Chiren (Jennifer Connelly) a fellow doctor who takes a keen interest in Alita and the dangerous Vector (Mahershala Ali) who acts as the eyes and ears and event the occasional avatar of the film’s true big bad, named Nova. I won’t spoil the cameo of the big name actor who plays Nova as the film spoils it in remarkable fashion. 

Not spoil in the sense of revealing something too soon. Rather, the way this big name cameo is revealed is akin to something spoiled and rotting. This cameo reeks to high heaven. It’s an absolute laugh out loud stinker of the lowest calibur. The cameo comes along in an already faltering third act of Alita and provides a yawp of unintended laughter before becoming a highly problematic plot point as the film comes to a close. 

I won’t spoil the ending as even my negative review of Alita Battle Angel likely won’t prevent many from seeing it. Plus, I actually don’t hate Alita Battle Angel, not completely. The first two acts of Alita Battle Angel were unexpectedly emotional and compelling. Rosa Salazar is a young actor to watch. What she lacks in experience and chops she makes up for with confidence and energy. Some may find her enthusiasm cloying but I found it winning, for 2 out of three acts of the movie. 

I even admired the attempts at romance in Alita Battle Angel. Yes, there are odd questions that the main character raises as a cyborg teenage girl, many of those questions being deeply unsettling or creepy but nevertheless. That said, Salazar sparks well with fellow newcomer Keean Johnson and I liked the plot complications that Hugo brings to this story. In pro wrestling terminology, Hugo is what we call a tweener, a character somewhere between good and evil and teetering one way or the other. 

There is perhaps almost too much Oscar gold in Alita Battle Angel. The pedigree is darn near distracting with three Oscar winners, four if you count Christoph Waltz twice, one Oscar nominee, an unrecognizable Jackie Earle Haley, and a cameo from an Oscar nominee. Robert Rodriguez has stacked the cast with Academy faves in order to balance out his romantic leads, both newcomers who benefit from the Awards savvy supporting players. 

Even that amount of talent however, can’t save Alita from a third act that flies laughably off the rails. As Alita is fighting her way toward the biggest of the big bads in Alita Battle Angel, she makes choices that make little sense. She suddenly buys into a plot point regarding a warrior code that was not well established before in the plot. This is done for the purpose of plot convenience in the most obvious fashion. 

Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali are then stranded in a classically James Bond moment where the fate of one of their characters is so achingly obvious that you can’t help but roll your eyes at the doozy of a cliché. At the very least, that plot has an unexpected and stunning visual payoff but that doesn’t change the nature of the embarrassing obviousness of that scene. And then the film ends without a complete resolution. 

Alita Battle Angel clips along for two thirds of the movie with a tremendous plot building strong complications with genuine stakes. Then, out of the blue, one of the main characters nearly dies, Alita nearly allows them to die and then, and then… well. I would need to go into serious spoiler territory to disentangle the nonsense that leads to this wholly unsatisfying end. I will only say that this abysmal third act ruined for me what was an otherwise enthralling and thrilling action adventure sci-fi romp. 

I was genuinely bummed when the movie began to falter. I could feel my heart sinking as the music of the final scene began to swell and it dawned on me that the film and these terrific characters would not have the chance to redeem themselves with a final battle sequence. Instead, I was left dispirited by a truly lame and misguided sequel tease. Ugh! Alita Battle Angel is two thirds of a really ripping adventure and one third of a bad Wachowski movie. 

(Sidebar: The Wachowski’s were the makers of The Matrix whose careers have been marked by remarkable ups like The Matrix and stunning failures such as The Matrix sequels and Jupiter Ascending. The final act of Alita sadly compares well to the worst of the output by visionary filmmakers quite similar to Wachowski’s in clout, status and popularity, Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron.) 

(Sidebar Sidebar: Yes, I know if I have to explain the funny-sad comparison it’s less funny but so be it, this parenthesized tangent is entertaining me even more than my insulting comparison.) 

(Sidebar-Sidebar-Sidebar: Then again, is a reference to the Wachowski's really so obscure that people need these sidebars? Perhaps not, but there is a lack of universality as to whether the majority of readers find a comparison to what I see as the worst of the Wachowski's, all that insulting.) 

(Si--- Okay, even I have tired of this.)

Movie Review Shutter Island

Shutter Island (2010)

Directed by Martin Scorsese 

Written by Laeta Kalogridis

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Max Von Sydow, Ben Kingsley

Release Date February 19th, 2010

Published February 18th, 2010

This is one of the most difficult reviews I have ever had to write. Martin Scorsese is, arguably, the finest filmmaker I have written about in my lifetime. I have an unending amount of respect and even awe for the man and his movies. Seeing one of his films is about as close as I come to a religious experience.

So, seeing one of his films and feeling that the film came up short of my expectations is not easy. It's not that Shutter Island is a bad movie but rather that I expect so much more from a filmmaker as great as Martin Scorsese. To watch as he steps into one of the biggest movie potholes in history is a little devastating for me.

Shutter Island stars Scorsese's most frequent, recent collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio as a Federal Marshall named Teddy Daniels. Teddy with his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) has been dispatched to a place called Shutter Island, a mental institute for the criminally insane, where a patient/inmate has gone missing.

There is no possible way that the patient, Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), actually escaped. Shutter Island is an actual island several chilly miles off the coast of Massachusetts. Installed on what used to be a Civil War base, Shutter Island is a forbidding structure that getting into is hard enough, getting out is unthinkable.

And yet, Rachel Solando is missing and no one seems to know how she got out. Why a Federal Marshall is needed for this case is a question never asked. Rachel didn't get off the island and is dead if she did. The hospital has a staff of ex-military and police officers for security who are searching for Rachel when the Marshalls arrive.

Teddy has a secret of his own related to the island but I will leave you to discover that. There are a number of nimble twists and turns to Scorsese's storytelling in Shutter Island. The screenplay was adapted by Laeta Kalogridis from a novel by Dennis Lehane whose novels Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone have previously been adapted into excellent movies. Ms. Kalogridis had an exceptionally daunting task in adapting Dennis Lehane's novel for a script by Martin Scorsese and that may be where the film's biggest problems lie.

The cinematic touches of Shutter Island are remarkable. Scorsese's eye is perfectly intact as he and cinematographer Robert Richardson pay homage to Hitchcock, noir detective stories and The Twilight Zone. Especially effective are Teddy's artful nightmares which contain stirring and terrifying imagery. For the visuals alone I could recommend Shutter Island.

The cast is solid as well as we continue to watch the evolution of Leonardo DiCaprio through the eyes of Martin Scorsese. In his non-Scorsese work DiCaprio's boyishness always seems to get played up. His pudgy cheeks and wet eyes were the central image of the failed Revolutionary Road, directed by Sam Mendes. Scorsese however,  pushes DiCaprio to be a man on screen and DiCaprio rises to each challenge. 

The rest of the cast is well populated with figures of menace and intrigue. Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow seem as if they have played the roles of the menacing doctor's at Shutter Island before. Mark Ruffalo perfectly balances insistent camaraderie with his new partner with enough skepticism to keep Teddy from suspecting him.

Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson play two halves of a whole character and could not be better at getting under DiCaprio's skin. Michelle Williams rounds out the cast as Teddy's late wife and the less said about her the better. It's a very strong performance but so key to the plot that I don't want to spoil it with detail.

The final moments of Shutter Island however, for me, are a massive disappointment. I cannot go into detail because you might see the movie and disagree with my assessment. I don't want to rob you of the chance to find the ending satisfying. I didn't find it satisfying, indeed I found it insulting, especially after the exhausting and exciting journey to get there. 

Honestly, I predicted Teddy's fate from the first trailer I saw for Shutter Island several months ago. I have not read Dennis Lehane's novel, choosing to avoid it and avoid spoiling the film. Yet, I was able to predict what would happen at the end of Shutter Island. I hoped Scorsese might find a way to surprise or come up with a way to get the same conclusion in a less predictable fashion. Instead, the structure of the plot makes the ending all the more painfully predictable and irritatingly unsatisfying when it comes.

Shutter Island is exceptionally well crafted and everything that leads up to the final moments is spectacular in its cinematic detail. Sadly, the final moments are such a disappointment that recommending the film is difficult if not impossible. I guess I can’t say don’t see it; there is too much good work not to. Just be prepared for a disappointing end and the rare occasion of being disappointed by Martin Scorsese.

Movie Review Pathfinder

Pathfinder (2007)

Directed by Marcus Nispel 

Written by Laeta Kalogridis

Starring Karl Urban, Moon Bloodgood, Russell Means, Clancy Brown

Release Date April 13th, 2007

Published April 14th, 2007 

The movie Pathfinder exists as an example of director Marcus Nispel's love of ultra-violence. Nispel, who last directed 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre re-imagining, has an affinity for violence that is quite curious considering his career prior to making feature films. Nispel is a former music video director who did fine work for artists like George Michael, Janet Jackson, Amy Grant and Billy Joel.

From that resume one could deduce that Marcus was desperate for a shot of manly ultra-violence. Thus we get Pathfinder, an exceptionally well shot bit of blood and guts action that forgets that there is more to filmmaking than just how cool you can make a severed head look as it floats through the air or how red the arterial splash is coming from a victims jugular.

Karl Urban stars in Pathfinder as 'the ghost'. Born a Viking, he rejected his plundering parents and was later discovered by a kindly Indian woman who took him in and raised him as her own. Now a man, Ghost, as his people call him must defend his new family against his old family. The vikings have returned to the new world to finish what they started. They wish to conquer this land and kill anyone who gets in the way.

That is the set up for Pathfinder, the payoff is some serious, hardcore violence and cruelty weighed down by some seriously bad acting and boring exposition. Director Marcus Nispel, working from a script by Laeta Kalogridis, sets up boring characters as placeholders for good and evil. The Indians are a kind, happy, sharing community. The vikings are savage, destructive meanies. And never shall nuance be introduced.

The film threatens, only momentarily, a social commentary on how America was founded on the blood of Indians who were robbed of their land and killed mercilessly if they refused to give it up. However, director Nispel doesn't have the patience for subtext and instead crafts a series of dull expository scenes as buffers between the astonishing bits of violence.

I must say that as bad as most of Pathfinder is, the violence as directed by Nispel and captured by cinematographer Daniel C. Pearl is exceptional. Though I could do without the hamfisted slow-mo's and mind numbing score, the violence of the sword play, the ax cuts and arrow blasts is eye catching and in a better film could have been really amazing. As it is, it's only a technical marvel.

Where Nispel fails in Pathfinder is the same place he failed with his take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's a failure to realize that the most compelling violence comes when we care about the outcome. The cardboard cutouts of good and evil that Nispel delivers in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and now in Pathfinder are incapable of involving an audience emotionally in whether they live or die.

Mystery Science Theater fans and lovers of bad movies everywhere will likely find much to enjoy about Pathfinder. With its Indian homilies and stereotypical noble savage portrayals the film is a vaguely racist hoot. Vaguely racist only because the Indians here are the good guys. Nevertheless, their onscreen portrayal in Pathfinder is only a politically correct step above the Wackowi tribe from TV's F-Troop.

Oh, if only the Indians in the movie were the only unintentional humor of Pathfinder. But no, wait till you see the first ever fight scene on sleds. Yes, sleds. Not real plastic and rope sleds like you had when you were a kid but rather a prehistoric sort of sled made from a Viking shield by our hero and used to blast down the side of a mountain like an X-Games athlete in a Mountain Dew commercial.

Then there is star Karl Urban who I swear is not this bad an actor. I know I have seen better, more compelling work from Mr. Urban, I just can't think of it right now. In Pathfinder Urban exists only to show off six pack abs and a tight backside covered only in a loincloth. Why would this be important to a movie that no woman in her right mind would ever watch intentionally? I have no idea, but there he is in all his oiled up glory.

Urban mumbles his every line of dialogue as if it were incidental to his performance. Who knows, maybe it was only incidental. There really isn't much for Urban or any of the characters to say in Pathfinder. As I said earlier, the film is merely a vehicle for director Marcus Nispel to display his love of spraying blood, flying heads and dismembered guts.

In that sense, Pathfinder is a modest success. The violence is extraordinary and eye popping, literally in the case of one ugly viking. It's the stuff in between the violence, the long, interminable interludes of Indian stereotypes and viking growling that makes a mess of the film.

For fans of hardcore violence and rock hard abs; Pathfinder is like a low grade 300. Not as compelling or well made as that Zak Snyder's blockbuster, but similar in its aims. The violence is extraordinary and honestly very well rendered by director Marcus Nispel. And star Karl Urban would be right at home on that Spartan battlefield with his shaved chest oiled up and ready for battle.

Pathfinder is a bad movie with great violence which leaves me at a loss. I can't recommend the film and yet I'm modestly impressed with some of it.

Movie Review: Alexander

Alexander (2004) 

Directed by Oliver Stone 

Written by Oliver Stone, Laeta Kalogridis 

Starring Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson, Anthony Hopkins

Release Date November 24th, 2004

Published November 23rd, 2004 

If Aaron Spelling had made a movie about Alexander The Great, it might sound a lot like the one Oliver Stone has just pushed into theaters: A breathy, overcooked melodrama of hot-blooded hardbodies falling in and out of bed in between fighting wars. Oliver Stone's Alexander is a big budget bio-pic that would feel more at home as a trashy TV movie than as a potential Oscar nominee.

Some 300 years before the birth of Christ, one man ruled most of planet Earth before his 32nd birthday. Alexander the Great, the son of King Phillip of Macedonia (Val Kilmer) and Queen Olympias (Angelina Jolie), was never supposed to be king. Because of a feud between his mother and father, Alexander was caught in the midst of a power struggle that leads to his father's murder and suspicion that his mother may have arranged the killing. 

Regardless of how he rose to power, once Alexander took power, he lead his charges to the ends of the world conquering and civilizing all barbarian tribes along the way. His story is marked with the deaths of thousands, but history is written by the victors which may be why Alexander is remembered as a benevolent conqueror who maintained palaces and people in power even after defeating their military forces on the battlefield.

Watching Stone's take on the life of Alexander would leave you to believe that Alexander's bloodiest battles were with his own top advisors, none of whom shared his vision of Asia as part of the Macedonian empire. Alexander's men simply wanted the riches of Asia to take back to Greece or the kingdom of Babylon, but Alexander -- a regular 4th century Jesse Jackson -- wanted a rainbow coalition of subjects who would help him rule the world and mix all the races of man; a regular united colors of Benetton style conqueror. 

Yes, according to Stone, Alexander was a champion of civil rights who even took a Persian wife, Roxana (Rosario Dawson), to placate his new Persian subjects. Alexander was also a champion of gay rights as well often sharing a same-sex canoodle with slaves of various ethnicities and sharing an especially close relationship with one of his top generals, Hephaistos (Jared Leto). The two soldiers never consummate the relationship on screen but it's clear from the dewy-eyed gazes and quivery-voiced declarations that if it wouldn't hurt the box office they might have hopped into bed.

Colin Farrell has played sexually confused man-child before, in the indie A Home At The End Of The World. However, there is a big difference between a broken home teenager searching for a family and an identity and the man who united the kingdoms of man before his 32nd birthday. If you want to play the character gay, that's fine, but do it with more depth than whiny schoolgirl stares and grandiloquent speeches whose only weight comes from the fact that they are delivered with an accent.

What happened to the fire that Colin Farrell used to carry him through his best performance in Tigerland? The fire that made him a logical choice for mega-stardom? Somewhere in the making of Alexander, that fire was replaced by the petulant longings of a dewy-eyed manchild. With his childish mood swings, it's hard to believe that this guy could have conquered his mother’s bedroom let alone the known world. I don't need Alexander to be John Wayne but a little butching up couldn't hurt. 

As for his mother, Jolie's performance provides the film’s only entertaining moments; not for her eloquent line readings or smoldering presence but rather the campy Joan Collins-style overacting she employs. Her every scene reminded me of the behind the scenes scheming that Collins made so deliciously goofy on Dynasty. Kilmer is no John Forsythe but he can bite into the scenery with the best of them and here he's a regular Jeremy Irons, absolutely chewing the walls.

Oliver Stone has always been prone to excess, but even by his standards, Alexander is a little much. His ego is way out in front of his storytelling here and what should be an epic feels more like an exercise of Stone's ability to raise large amounts of studio capital to feed his massive ego. A true disaster, Alexander will be remembered on Oscar night only as the subject of one of Chris Rock's biting monologue punchlines.