Alita: Battle Angel

pixelburp

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

This is seriously under performing at the box office, which is an incredible shame.

Should do very good business in Asia though, but not sure it'll be enough to save it and greenlight a sequel.

I dunno, can't imagine this has very good projections at any point; there aren't a lot of easy sells in the bullet points: new, relatively niche IP; Few big stars to pimp; released during the cinematic doldrums; The advertising tended toward bigging up James Cameron's part in all this, but can't help but feel his pull is much reduced compared to yesteryear.

kerplun k

I seen it last night. I was pleasantly surprised and found it very enjoyable.
The SFX are amazing but as others have said, I would have liked Rodriguez to let some of these scenes linger for a bit longer and take a few extra moments to appreciate the visuals. Maybe this was just me, but I defiantly felt it was influenced by video games, the bright lights and colorful tracks in the muderball arenas reminded me of Mario Kart. Some of the fight scenes and bad guys was very Gears of Warzys, and Alita herself reminded me a bit of Dante from Devil May Cry. There was something very gratifying about the way little Alita swaggers around and then proceeds to

kick the living sh1te out of anyone that gives her guff.

The constant sequel plugging was a bit annoying. Don't get me wrong I'd love to see more of these, but there was no need to ram it down my throat, the film was already moving at breakneck speed, the last thing it needed was to try some sequel building.

Its never a good sign when you want one of the main protagonists to die,

I'm looking at you Hugo

.

Another frustrating thing was when Alita

fully leveled up, armor, costume, sword in tow, and the belief she was "The One"

, Rodriguez decides yet again to go full tilt and blow through this without stopping to breath. I would have loved to see her have this cool, smug,

Neo corridor moment and nonchalantly kick some a$$.

We got something like that,

at the very end

, but it's way too short and happens wayyyyy too quickly.

Overall, I found it a really good watch. I don't think it's doing too well at the box office so I'm not sure if we'll get that sequel this film tried so hard to sell us, especially now that Fox is now Disney, but one thing that gives me hope is that this film is very Disney friendly, so Disney may decide to continue with this and sprinkle some of its mouse magic on it. here's hoping.

Some other random bits

• Jennifer Connelly. still got it.
• Mahershala Ali. fast becoming one of my favorite actors but is criminally underused here
• Sticking with Ali, if Marvel ever get around to making another Blade, Ali has to be a shoe in.
• Apparently the only way to get to Zalem is....
  putting your brain and eyes in a jar? WTF was that all about?
• Hello Jai Courtney head cameo
• #NotMyDaario
• So long Hugo, we hardly knew ye. Good riddance.
• Just me, or did Alita
  go psycho girlfriend really quickly. Maybe Hugo had a lucky escape
• Since when did Hollywood decide
  the best way to motivate your protagonist is to slaughter an innocent dog.
• Was nobody suspicious when everyone just abandoned the muderball game to chase Alita?
• Hello Edward Norton head cameo

conorhal

Caught it finally. It's a mixed bag.
Visually it's very well put together. My expectation (from the eary trailers) of a rollercoaster ride through the uncanny valley didn't materialize and the 3D (as you'd expect from Cameron) is for once worthy of the ticket price, but by God they didn't need to cram 2 movies into one.
As soon as I saw Motor-ball in the trailer it became apparent that James Cameron just couldn't resist shoe-horning it into a story arc it didn't belong in purely for the visual spectacle, and the result is a really choppy plot and everything feels rushed.
Instead of concentrating on perhaps a smaller story, Alita becomes a bounty-hunter, lot of ‘stuff and characters’ have been moved around and changed to provide at least some answers to the audience regards the larger over arching plot of the story, many of the reveals in the film are revelations that only occurred in much later volumes of the manga.
The result is a ton of exposition and and some of the changes the script made resulted in character motivations and scenes that don’t make a whole lot of logical sense.

Overall I liked the film, but that could be coloured by my appreciation for the manga and my willingness to overlook just how God awful some of the dialogue and the romantic sub-plot actually are. I was kind surprised at how faithful the film is to many scenes in the Manga, but to be honest, faithfulness to some aspects of manga is a detriment to the film, especially the cheesy dialogue.
6/10

RasTa

Reading they need about $500m worldwide to break even. How does someone waste that amount of money on this?

AMKC

I seen it last and really enjoyed it. It has humour, great special effects and good action. Maybe it was a bit long but overall I would give it 7 out of 10.

silverharp

RasTa wrote: »

Reading they need about $500m worldwide to break even. How does someone waste that amount of money on this?

ouch! its not a blockbuster type movie, they obviously made it with a sequel in mind but looks like they will lose their shirts on this

speedboatchase

Unfortunately, this is another example of why Hollywood should stick to endless Robin Hood/Tarzan reboots rather than trying to create new big-budget franchises.

Whatever you feel about their quality or otherwise, Alita joins the dumpster heap of other original or new-to-film sci-fi bets alongside Jupiter Ascending, Tomorrowland, A Wrinkle in Time, and Edge of Tomorrow in just the past few years alone.

Where is the next Matrix going to come from?

silverharp

speedboatchase wrote: »

Unfortunately, this is another example of why Hollywood should stick to endless Robin Hood/Tarzan reboots rather than trying to create new big-budget franchises.

Whatever you feel about their quality or otherwise, Alita joins the dumpster heap of other original or new-to-film sci-fi bets alongside Jupiter Ascending, Tomorrowland, A Wrinkle in Time, and Edge of Tomorrow in just the past few years alone.

Where is the next Matrix going to come from?

the matrix cost $60m , this cost $170m. if they didnt have bloated budgets they might turn a buck on a smaller outlay

CatFromHue

speedboatchase wrote: »

Unfortunately, this is another example of why Hollywood should stick to endless Robin Hood/Tarzan reboots rather than trying to create new big-budget franchises.

Whatever you feel about their quality or otherwise, Alita joins the dumpster heap of other original or new-to-film sci-fi bets alongside Jupiter Ascending, Tomorrowland, A Wrinkle in Time, and Edge of Tomorrow in just the past few years alone.

Where is the next Matrix going to come from?

Edge of Tomorrow cost 178m and made 370.5m at the box office so I think that makes it a success.

Not a massive success, but still a success.

speedboatchase

CatFromHue wrote: »

Edge of Tomorrow cost 178m and made 370.5m at the box office so I think that makes it a success.

Not a massive success, but still a success.

Generally a movie needs to make 2x its production budget to break even, so maybe it just about scrimped through. I read on Deadline Hollywood that Alita needs around $500m to break even though, and that has a $180m, so I guess there's no hard and fast rule.

silverharp

its even "worse", 2x for domestic and 3x for international

conorhal

silverharp wrote: »

its even "worse", 2x for domestic and 3x for international

I learned and interesting fact from Grace Randolph this week, China isn't exactly the international market saviour of failing domestic fare that it's often proported to be, because on average the studio get only 25% of the box office reciepts in China, less then they would domestically.

So when a movie opens soft domestically but opens big in China, yet still never sees a sequel, now you know why.

Having slept on it, I'm less annoyed about the changes made to the timeline of events in Alita, I can see why they were made, even if I don't agree with them.
I think that the 'ewwww, rather than Ooooooh' reaction to the first trailer fatally undermined the film. Original content seems to be a tough sell in Hollywood lately, so the last thing the film needed was a first impression that turned off general audiences. The 'anime eyes' were a big mistake and clearly too much to ask of a general audience unfamiliar witih the material.
Personally, I didn't find them nearly as destracting as I thought I would. Props to Weta Digital for creating characters and a world that was lush and realistic, but some still found the character design distracting.

The next big misstep is one that's sunk even behemoth properties like DC's cinematic universe. Creating a film that ends with anti-climatic sequel bait or operates as a cinematic universe primer rather then a story.
Hollywood, please stop giving us movies that expect, nay, demand a sequel without bothering to establish itself as a property people are interested in seeing a sequel to. This is what Netflix limited series are for and clearly many chose to stay home and chill instead.


It's a shame the movie's tepid bix office means that a sequel is unlikely, because I genuinely did enjoy the film. Who knows, the movie might get a sequel anyway simply because James Cameron just ploughs ahead regardless, though that I suspect will depend on how the first Avatar sequel is received.

silverharp

at the end of the day is was a fun silly little movie with dodgy CGI. Mildly curious after watching the movie what was going on with the sky city but at the end of the day it wasn't gripping and wasnt overly invested with the characters.

restive

I saw this tonight. Unfortunately i waited to long to go to see it so I got to see it on one of the smaller screens in the multiplex(imc). I enjoyed it overall however the decision to try to set up a sequel took from the film.

I just want to mention these type of films really need to be seen on a larger screen. The special effects lose alot of their potency on smaller cinema screens. Some of the older cinema screens seem dated by this type of film. The same goes for ghost in the shell which I also wound up seeing on a smaller cinema screen.

dudara

I saw it on the 3D IMAX recently. I had low expectations going in TBD, based on previous poorly animated films. I really enjoyed it, the Alita character was well done and Christoph Waltz was excellent. Thankfully ther want as much of the Motorball stupidity as promised by the trailer, and I enjoyed the Mars/Earth backstory.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel to this, but I wish they hadn’t made it so bloody obvious in the film that this was where they were going.

2smiggy

finally got to see this. really enjoyed it. i see it made about $400m world wide, which may not be enough for a sequel to be made. Hopefully they do get to make a sequel !!

Dades

I watched it too for the first time last weekend, and was surprised how much I liked it. Really enjoyed it.

c.p.w.g.w

Went to the cinema to see it, really enjoyed it. But nobody knew about it, aside from 2 of my mates

Slydice

94% from the Audience on RT!
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/alita_battle_angel

User Ratings: 29,815

Cryptopagan

Limp script, great action, appealing central performance.

branie2

That's sounds very interesting

marklazarcovic

Great movie imo,know nothing of the anime

evad_lhorg

Agreed with all of the above here. I knew nothing about it but I loved the look of it and went to see it.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. The setting, the characters, the action. Hopefully there will be a decent follow up.

Slydice

Gave it a watch. Just like the anime which I really liked! I guess the surprises didn't hit as much.

I liked the new story bits,

about Mars

, that I don't remember from the anime. Much like the anime, I wouldn't mind a few sequels to see this universe fleshed out.

I feel like I probably missed out by not seeing this in IMAX.

Glebee

Watched this last night not expectimg much and had not heard much about the film only it existed. Best film ive seen in ages, brilliant if you like sci fi / fantasy stuff. I love when this happen, when you see a movie not knowing what to expect and end up loving it..

Slydice

Still 93% with the audience on RT.