shot of some rocks. To say that the film looked particularly dazzling would be lying, this is just more of the same and doesn't wow. I could talk about how the characters are paper thin, that the story spends time in needless areas, and that there didn't need to be a "bad guy". All of these things are valid, but I feel like I am repeating myself in my reviews. It seems all made for kids/family movies are dropping in quality. Never letting the audience soak in complex emotions and telling the viewer what to think and how to feel. This movie isn't exciting, though the person jiggling their foot on the back of my chair would argue. There are no real stakes, the villain isn't set-up that well, and this is just a disappointing conclusion to the franchise. But its ok to like this movie. I know a lot of people really enjoyed what they saw, and that's fine. Just because the best parts are about animals being cute doesn't mean that this movie needs to be buried alive; just be skeptical when someone says its really good. I don't even want to rate this/10
I guess you forgo character development and story if you got cute dragons
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proportions being off to smoothing of the skin, and audio dissonance. Another small detail that bugged me came in the form of wet clothing. When a shirt gets wet, it hugs your body and sags a little bit. There is a scene where Alita is in wet clothing and this does not happen. It might sound like nitpicking but its the small details that can break immersion. The story is a mixed bag. It does a fantastic job westernizing modern Japanese storytelling. It takes the tropes seen in that style and smoothes them out to great effect. Though it still has characters apologize for things that aren’t their fault, and tons of other crutches that Japanese storytelling uses. I didn’t find it as jarring as other reviewers have because I watch anime, but it could definitely be weird for someone not used to it. This explanation doesn’t absolve the movie of all its story problems, it's just to point out one of the sources of them. All cards on the table, Alita is a mary sue. She never loses a fight and is good at everything, except eating an orange. There were striking similarities to Ray from The Force Awakens. The wide-eyed, literally in this case, person new to a world and finding out they are the best at everything they do. There are essentially no stakes for Alita which makes it hard to ever feel she is in danger. I would say that this is normal in anime, but at least the main character loses once in a while or grows as a character. You could say that information is revealed about Alita as the movie goes on, but this isn’t really true. You learn everything you need to know about the character at the beginning of the second act, so there is no more discovery. It's not like this is the movie’s only story problem, there are dumb character relationships spread throughout. Unconvincing love interests, family relationships, and characters that go through a change of heart all fall flat. If there is one thing that could have saved this movie, it would have been the action scenes. There are many in this movie and half of them are not very good. The ones that entertain the least have a problem with shot composition or editing. Either the flow of the fight is obscured by how the sequence was edited or the framing of the fight lead to confusion. When the fights were at there best, they were flashy, involved, and had a great weight to them. Alita: Battle Angle was a interesting movie for sure. I think it's a little on the lower side all things considered but definitely shows a path forward for high budget anime done justice. The real problem is that the people willing to spend money to see the movie in the theater is a small pool. If you want to see a movie about an overpowered character beat everything up this might be the one for you. At least it's visually more interesting than The Force Awakens. 4.5/10
I don't understand how that city floats. Does it have propulsion on the bottom or is it just magic? |
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