{"id":1400,"date":"2019-04-16T15:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T21:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2019-03-13T20:08:58","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T02:08:58","slug":"movie-alita-battle-angel-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/16\/movie-alita-battle-angel-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Alita &#8211; Battle Angel (2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/e\/ee\/Alita_Battle_Angel_%282019_poster%29.png\" alt=\"Alita: Battle Angel\" width=\"250\" height=\"370\" \/>Alita: Battle Angel<br \/>\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2019<br \/>\nRating: PG-13<br \/>\nLength: 122 minutes \/ 2.03 hours<\/p>\n<p>With the plethora of successes that the comic book movie has seen over the last decade, it\u2019s a little disheartening to see the Japanese equivalent fail to make much headway. There are just as many interesting and action-packed stories from manga and anime that deserve the treatment given to comic book movies. Instead, busts like\u00a0<em>Dragonball: Evolution<\/em>\u00a0(2009) and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/20\/movie-ghost-in-the-shell-2017\/\"><em>Ghost in the Shell<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2017) have shown that live-action adaptations are challenging, especially when there\u2019s already an animated counterpart. This was why I was excited to see\u00a0<em>Alita: Battle Angel<\/em>\u00a0(2019).<\/p>\n<p>While many manga\/anime film adaptations fail to grasp the feel of the source material,\u00a0<em>Alita <\/em>appeared to be a passion project for James Cameron. The fact that Robert Rodriguez directed this movie helped as well, considering how well he brought the graphic novel\u00a0<em>Sin City<\/em>\u00a0to the screen in 2005. Of course, he also directed\u00a0<em>Spy Kids<\/em>\u00a0(2001), which was colorful and full of fun action. In the end, I found\u00a0<em>Alita<\/em>\u00a0to be somewhat of a mix between the two. It had the brutality and violence from\u00a0<em>Sin City<\/em>, mixed with the fun cyberpunk aesthetic and action from\u00a0<em>Spy Kids<\/em>. The fact that it works at all is a testament to the creative team behind it.<\/p>\n<p>To sum up\u00a0<em>Alita: Battle Angel<\/em>\u00a0in one word, it\u2019s \u201cdense.\u201d Almost every scene is paced at a quick clip and doesn\u2019t spend too much time dwelling on any one topic. This allows it to cover a lot of ground that\u2019s probably condensed down from a few volumes of the manga. It\u2019s great that the story unravels so quickly, but some of the emotional beats aren\u2019t prolonged enough for the audience to develop a connection. I did appreciate that it wrapped up most of its loose ends, but I hope it does well so we can see the clearly intended sequel.<\/p>\n<p>Probably one of the best anime live-action adaptations to date, I give\u00a0<em>Alita: Battle Angel<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alita: Battle Angel Year: 2019 Rating: PG-13 Length: 122 minutes \/ 2.03 hours With the plethora of successes that the comic book movie has seen over the last decade, it\u2019s a little disheartening to see the Japanese equivalent fail to make much headway. There are just as many interesting and action-packed stories from manga and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2],"tags":[1576,1702,616,1707,613,373,13,8,1704,1703,1706,1705],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-movie","tag-1576","tag-alita-battle-angel","tag-anime","tag-dragonball-evolution","tag-ghost-in-the-shell","tag-james-cameron","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-robert-rodriguez","tag-sin-city","tag-speed-racer","tag-spy-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1419,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions\/1419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}