Alita: Battle Angel — Exciting futuristic thrills

Alita: Battle Angel (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and quite generously, despite relentless violence and gore
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.15.19

When we get sci-fi world-building on a scale this visually spectacular, there’s no doubt that James Cameron must be involved.

Hugo (Keean Johnson) rushes forward, hoping to prevent a catastrophe, when a
potentially violent encounter prompts Alita's (Rosa Salazar) battle instincts to kick in.

In fairness, director Robert Rodriguez deserves equal credit for this energetic, post-apocalyptic adventure. Where Cameron’s epics generally have a serious tone with underlying real-world political elements, Rodriguez is more willing to just have a good time. That’s certainly the case with Alita: Battle Angel, which sometimes displays the youthful, wide-eyed breathlessness that was typical of his Spy Kids series.

But we must remember that Rodriguez also is the gritty, down ’n’ dirty maestro behind From Dusk Till Dawn and the Sin City chillers, and he stretches this new film’s PG-13 rating waypast the breaking point.

Alita: Battle Angel is a Frankenstein’s monster of a movie, which successfully blends elements from previous classics: a little bit of 1975’s Rollerball, a taste of 1982’s Blade Runner, a soupçon of 2013’s Elysium and a whole lotta 2001’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Considerable credit also goes to Yukito Kishiro, creator of the 1990 cyberpunk manga series Gunnm(translated on these shores as Battle Angel Alita). Kishiro’s series ultimately went to nine volumes, after which Cameron optioned the property … way back in 2000.

Although originally intending to direct a big-screen adaptation, Cameron got distracted by Avatar; meanwhile, he “borrowed” some of Kishiro’s concepts for the 2000-02 TV series Dark Angel, which made a star of young Jessica Alba. Numerous twists and turns later — notably, after Rodriguez was brought in, initially just to trim Cameron’s overlong screenplay — all the elements fell into place, and here we are.

We should be grateful for this long gestation, because it allowed special effects technology to catch up with Kishiro’s wildly imaginative premise and setting. Senior visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri and production designers Caylah Eddleblute and Steve Joyner have delivered a jaw-dropping degree of futuristic wonder: a wholly immersive dystopian setting that feels persuasively authentic, down to the tiniest detail.

Rodriguez also makes excellent use of Bill Pope’s 3D cinematography. You’ll want to experience this film at least twice: once for its exciting, pell-mell storyline; the second time to better appreciate the meticulous effort that has gone into every frame.

Mind you, elements of the complex plot are insufficiently addressed by the script — credited to Cameron, Rodriguez and Laeta Kalogridis (the latter known as the creator of TV’s Altered Carbon) — but Rodriguez and editors Stephen E. Rivkin and Ian Silverstein maintain enough momentum to carry us past dangling questions.

Sanctum: No solace here

Sanctum (2011) • View trailer for Sanctum
1.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, violence, grim peril and disturbing images
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.4.11


Do not be misled, by the prominent use of James Cameron’s name, into believing that Sanctum is worthy of your time.

It isn’t.

Josh (Rhys Wakefield, left) and his father, Frank (Richard Roxburgh), prepare
to lead their comrades through a narrow underwater passageway: so tight that
they'll need to unhook their re-breathing equipment and push the tanks in front
of them, while carefully preserving the fragile hoses. Worse yet, they've no
idea what will be found on the other side...

I’m surprised Cameron would associate himself with such a stinker. Yes, the underwater work and caving cinematography are spectacular, and the 3-D effects are stylishly employed. Yes, some of the free-climbing stunt work is impressive. Yes, the level of claustrophobic tension is effectively conveyed.

But that’s all superficial stuff. As I’ve said so many times before, our hearts and minds are engaged by compelling characters and a solid story, not by an overwhelming assault of state-of-the-art cinematic technology.

And, at its core, Sanctum is a classic example of what I’ve dubbed the idiot plot: a movie that advances, from one scene to the next, only because each and every character behaves like an idiot at all times.

A woodenly acted idiot, at that. Spouting the worst dialogue I’ve endured from a major release in quite awhile.

Honestly, who told "scripters" Andrew Wight and John Garvin they could write? And who gave Alister Grierson the notion that he could direct? The performances here are flat, stiff and utterly lifeless, the dialogue bombastically melodramatic in the extreme. I'd say this was the stuff of a bad afternoon soap opera, but that insults soap operas.

This is the sort of movie where characters declaim the obvious at all times: the certain hallmark of screenwriters who don’t trust us viewers to keep up with their numb-nuts story. (It ain’t even that difficult. People get trapped deep underground. They struggle to get out. Period.) It’s the sort of purple melodrama where every other line is a howler such as "I didn’t come all this way to sit on the sidelines!" or "How did you become like this?"

Avatar: Myth-making

Avatar (2009) • View trailer for Avatar
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violence, sensuality, brief profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.18.09
Buy DVD: Avatar • Buy Blu-Ray: Avatar (Three-Disc Extended Collector's Edition + BD-Live) [Blu-ray]



This is cinematic world-building on an epic, jaw-dropping scale.

Berkeley Breathed, late of Bloom County and Opus, delivered an entertaining rant in the Nov. 19 Los Angeles Times, and complained about the rampant complacence of the modern movie viewer. Computer-enhanced graphics make the fantastic far too ordinary, he argued; movie patrons have seen it all before, and yawn at what should astound them.

I can think back to seminal moments in filmmaking history: the ones that generated a sense of wonder that only a well-crafted science-fiction film can deliver. For example, we've no concept — at this great remove — of how viewers went absolutely nuts over Walt Disney's 1954 adaptation of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Movie audiences simply hadn't been taken to the ocean depths before, and folks were utterly knocked out.

Thanks to the data gathered by Jake (Sam Worthington, left) while in his avatar
form, Grace (Sigourney Weaver, foreground) and Norm (Joel David Moore)
learn more about the fascinating symbiosis between this planet's indigenous
people and every plant and animal in their environment. Trudy (Michelle
Rodriguez, background), a tough-talking gunship pilot who has come to respect
this scientific work, waits for instructions about their next mission.

I was around, however, for the similar thrill afforded by the opening of 1977's Star Wars, as Princess Leia's consular ship was pursued by the massive Imperial star destroyer: so huge it seemed to emanate from the space behind us in the theater. The deep-space thrills only got better, building to the vertigo-inducing climax when Luke Skywalker made his strafing run on the Death Star.

Many years passed before another movie delivered a similar eye-popping jolt, when 1993's Jurassic Park had me half-convinced that Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton had found a scientist who really did grow dinosaurs with cloning techniques.

And now, with Avatar, writer/director James Cameron's crew has taken us to another whole planet, with its own extremely complicated eco-system. The breathtaking attention to detail covers everything from topography to the nighttime sky, from the tiniest insect to the most massive lumbering predator, from huge trees to the yielding moss that glows green when trod upon.

Some of this newness and strangeness, due to narrative necessity, is highlighted and commented upon. Most of it, however, is just there: alternately dazzling or simply different things to see and hear, which quietly contribute both to the otherworldliness of this environment, and the notion that we are, indeed, no longer in Kansas.

Enormous care has been taken, while creating an entire interconnected ecosystem.

Very, very impressive.