Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Theater review. Possible spoilers. Let me get this out of the way up front. I don’t read graphic novels of any sort, nor do I know what Manga is. I do know however, who James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez are and I’m a fan of sci-fi so here we go. The film is a composite of live action with bits and pieces of motion capture technology applied to some of the characters. Rodriguez directed and co-wrote the film with Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis. The story is set about 500 years in the future and the Earth has been reduced to nearly inhabitable landscape of rust and broken down buildings called Iron City. Well except for this giant saucer of a city called Zalem that somehow floats above the clouds but has large tubes that link it with the ground in order to get supplies shipped up. This is where the "haves" live. Hmmm. This all sounds very familiar, right. Dr. Dyson Ido (I kept wondering if he’s an heir to the vacuum cleaner people) is out rummaging the dump where Zalem drop its refuse. There he finds the head of a female cyborg which appears to be intact. It turns out the doc (Christoph Waltz) is a scientist who manufactures mechanical limbs out of bits and pieces he finds. He also has a hunter-killer license which gives him permission to take out people or things on a criminal list. In other words he’s a bounty hunter like several others we will get to know. Ido digs up an old bionic body he was going to use for his crippled daughter before she was killed. He attaches it to the head and presto a girl who has no memory comes back to life. He calls her Alita (Rosa Salazar). She knows nothing of world she is in today and remembers nothing of her past. Slowly it will all come back to her. While exploring her neighborhood she meets a guy named Hugo (Keean Johnson). She looks at him with those large googly-eyes (again something I don’t understand why the doc couldn’t find normal sized eyes) and he’s smitten, even though she’s not exactly human. He teaches her how to play a game called motorball which is essentially roller derby but with the real possibility of death at the pro level. A character called Vector (Mahershala Ali) and his top scientist and ex-wife of Dr. Ido, Chiren (Jennifer Connelly) control the top players and regularly shop for the top mechanical parts, even if they are otherwise attached to humans. Vector is also a vehicle for the top guy on Zalem (uncredited Edward Norton) known as Nova. When his eyes turn blue you know it’s Nova speaking. Vector and Chiren are intent on capturing Alita when they learn that she is a quick learner and has great speed and strength. So there are some lengthy scenes where Alita goes mano y mano with Vector’s goon squad of assassins. In a big fight with biggest goon called Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley), Alita gets chopped up pretty good. Fortunately she had earlier found an old space ship which had a bionic body of historic origin that Dr. Ido locked up. He now has no choice but to use it. Alita transforms pretty quickly from a 15 or 16 year old body to a 25 year old woman. And make no mistake the new suit leaves no doubt. She is now her proper age and the suit provides unusual abilities including strength, stamina and speed. The film had a huge budget, something on the order of $200 million and much is spent on the CGI and special effects. The film at its best is fast, colorful and full of action. This is one of those film that you might want to pay a little extra and see it on a big screen with lots of speakers and 3-D. It looks great. The story is nothing special and has been seen with some variations hundreds of times. Salazar is excellent as the Battle Angel. The film is set up for a sequel so watch the box office success if you want to see another. Yeah, I do.