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[REVIEW] ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ Is A Cyberpunk Epic

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It’s a world of despair and lawlessness. A world of human-mechanical hybrids. A world where the elite live in the sky while the rest wither below. It is the world of Alita: Battle Angel.

Image via IMDB

Cyber-doctor Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) discovers the broken frame of an amnesiac cyborg girl he dubs Alita (Rosa Salazar) in the scrap heap of Iron City, below the floating utopia of Zalem that dumps its refuse on the peasantry below. Ido vows to care for Alita, but she is drawn to discovering her past, bits and pieces flashing to her in the heat of fighting and possibly rooted in the dystopic history of the sad state of the planet. She befriends a local scrapper named Hugo (Keean Johnson) and draws the attention of the corrupt factory boss, Vector (Mahershala Ali) and mysterious scientist Chiren (Jennifer Connelly) leading her into further conflict.

After years and years of false-starts, James Cameron has finally brought the big screen adaptation of Alita to life, bestowing directing duties to the ever talented and imaginative Robert Rodriguez. A perfect fit considering his adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City that felt like it brought the pages to life. As a fan of the original manga and anime by Yukito Kishiro, also known as Battle Angel Alita or Gunnm (Gun Dream), it is simply astounding seeing the characters and scenes realized.

While rooted in the first couple volumes, and heavily from the anime original video animation, it does a great job in blending elements together and even setting up arcs and characters from later volumes for potential sequels that I sincerely hope we get. While there will certainly be some controversies as other characters and elements were combined or left out in the process, it did well by distilling such an expansive story into just one film. A couple of plotlines get a little muddled, but considering the scale of such an adaptation, it is impressive to say the least.

Image via IMDB

As for the characters, Rosa Salazar truly becomes Alita on screen. She captures all the facet of the character, from an amnesiac girl trying to find her place in a harsh world, to an unforgiving warrior who will fight to the death to protect those around her. The decision to make her an entirely CG character is one with its share of controversy, but once you get past the large eyes it doesn’t diminish anything and only adds to her uncanny nature as a cyborg. An entirely artificial body with a human brain. The rest of the cast stand out, from Christoph Waltz as the father Ido to Mahershala Ali’s cool and cruel Vector. The ensemble cast from the original series is realized.

Image via IMDB

Of course, being a James Cameron produced film it is a visual feat for the eyes. Iron City representing a dystopic but diverse city with a melting pot of people, cyborgs, and cultures from an Earth that has since been mostly ruined. The fight choreography between cyborgs and martial artists are stunning to behold. This is a movie that must be seen in Imax, 3D, a combination thereof, or at least the largest and most impressive screen you can find. Imax allowing 26% more action to be shown in frame. This is especially cool during the scenes of the cyborg sport known as Motorball, a transhuman extension of deathsports like Rollerball.

Alita won’t be for everyone of course. But for what it does, it does amazingly. A story of what it truly means to be human and what our dreams mean in a society that seems built solely for crushing them. Alita is one for the dreamers, past, present, and future.

Alita: Battle Angel opens in theater Feburary 14th, 2019.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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