Alita: Battle Angel (new Cameron/Rodriguez SF epic)

I just got back from seeing it and I liked it very much too. If this makes lots of money, no doubt there will be sequels.

Spoiler

Jennifer Connelly's direct about-face didn't bother me. For me, when she did it, I think she came to the realization of who was really bad and who was really good, after seeing Alita care and show love for her boyfriend after he got stabbed (when Alita took him in the building away from the bounty hunters and droids, Jennifer Connelly walked in. I think that moment made her realize how much she missed her real daughter and then started to see what Christoph Waltz's character saw from the gitgo in Alita.)

 

Also,

Spoiler

I didn't realize the really big cyborg was Jackie Earl Haley until the end credits rolled.

 

Sadly, unless it's a Disney movie, kids will avoid G rated movies, so you have to stick something in there to get a PG or PG-13 rating.

 

One other thing:

Spoiler

In case you are wondering, 20th Century Fox exists in the 26th Century. They just change their name to 26th Century Fox. That made me chuckle at the start of the movie.

 

Could I trouble you to put that in a SPOILER tag? Thanks!

 

Satisfied? I didn't know credited cast were considered spoilers.

 

It should have been rated R and they should have gone further there.... more Rodrigues, less Cameron writing wise.

 

It was just way too fast for me.

 

I didn't know if it was a revelation.

 

I thought you'd be able to mention specific 3D movies that didn't work. Sounds like you simply don't like 3D period, which is a different issue...

 

Still disagree. Plenty of fake 3D movies that look as good - or better - than real ones...

 

as much as i thought this was decent.......this is looking like a bomb....$35 mil US over the 5 day weekend.....will be lucky to do 90 mil in the US...for the most part , non US comic book films (meaning non-DC or Marvel , mostly (we haven't had enough Image or Dark Horse films (as of late) to draw a conclusion ) , seem to not do very well

 

Reading the reviews from the critic's, it just the usual B.S. statements about plot...

 

Here is something that someone spent some time putting together from Final Fantasy X2.

Yuna's spinning around

(Can't imbed YouTube media for some reason, use link).

This was posted back in 2007. The music bed is "Spin Around" by Josie and the Pussycats.

 

Only Japan and China can save it now, opening on Feb 22.


Alita: Battle Angel is leading a dismal President's Day weekend at the North American box office, earning $7.5 million on Friday for a projected four-day weekend of $29 million and six-day bow of $37.8 million.

That's a troublesome start for the year's first big-budget event pic, even while coming in ahead of tracking. Directed by Robert Rodriguez and co-written James Cameron, the cyberpunk adventure cost 20th Century Fox at least $200 million to produce before tax rebates and incentives brought the net budget down to $165 million-$170 million.

Alita will need to have strong legs domestically and do big business overseas, where it collected $32 million from its first handful of markets last weekend.

Cameron produced Alita alongside his partner at Lightstorm, Jon Landau. The performance capture pic has the advantage of playing on higher-priced Imax, premium large format and 3D screens. Audiences gave the film an A- CinemaScore, compared to lukewarm reviews from critics.

 

Yeah but that was the weakest part of the film.

 

I just saw it and enjoyed it (I didn't see it in 3D however). There will be sequels no doubt. I make a point generally not to read any reviews before seeing a movie (I even prefer not seeing a trailer more often than not). I'm kind of surprised so many here base going to see movies on the reviews, if you have an interest in a new release, go see it and decide for yourself. What chance will there be that the reviewer sees it exactly through your eyes? Plus from what I've seen throughout the years, critics are pretty jaded.

 

yea-- a sequel will never happen...maybe a Netflix or Cable reboot in 10 yrs or so....this is on its way to being a bomb on the John Carter level

 

would have done better if it had a DC or Marvel tag attached to it ...it's too bad that neither one of them ever published this , so they could take advantage of this ...

 

My daughter should like it since she's a big anime art fan going by her portfolio she showed me to impress this old fart cartoonist BACK IN 2005!

Maybe anime has run its course with the Millennials which might explain the dismal box office draw. And since Alita's eyes look more like a brain swelling right behind the eyes making any connection to what made the original anime popular with its stylized drawing and limited animation style seem pointless.

 

If bug eyed characters based movies in need of motion capture is of interest, may I suggest this long standing and relevant antique...

 

Chick flick.
That aside, apart from a few howlers ..love interest kinda cute to begin with,then the falling decapated torso scene that was a bit sick a few laughs behind me. And the evil guy in the sky, gimme a break. Jennifer Connelly hot milf early scenes were effective, stockings etc. Then the da da bit at the end, Have to wait two years for part 2, assuming.

 

I absolutely loathe anime...but I have often enjoyed live action films based on Anime - my problem is the terrible animation frame rates and the lack of lip sync.

 

Oh, the movie is crashing and burning this weekend...



Alita: Battle Angel, directed by Robert Rodriguez, is easily winning the Presidents Day box office, with a $24.4M 3-day and $28.8M. But it is hardly enough to be considered a success. By Monday, the pic’s five-day total per industry estimates this morning should reach $37.5M.

Outside film finance sources with knowledge of the pic’s budget have informed us that breakeven is anywhere between $500M-$550M, and well, good luck reaching that. A $50M domestic start over 5 days would be considered at the very least respectable for a movie this size. We understand Alita‘s price tag was originally $200M, and whittled down to $170M between New Zealand and Texas tax credits.

However, the overall challenge with Alita —film critics’ 59% Rotten Tomatoes score aside—and why it’s not doing well is that fresh sci-fi material and world creation, when its not under the Marvel ‘Goodhousekeeping’ banner, is increasingly becoming an impossible task. We saw this with the Peter Jackson-produced Mortal Engines, which flat-out broke down with a $110M production cost and a final domestic of $16M and WW $81.7M. Audiences are fickle: They’ll either reject what’s foreign in a sci-fi pic, while critics demand that the genre be entirely original and socially relevant. With Alita, esteemed New York Times critic Manohla Dargis felt like she saw this movie too many times before (the pic does have echoes of Avatar and Pinocchio), calling it “a pile-up of clichés in service to technological whiz-bangery, Alita is one more story of the not-quite human brought to life with hubris and bleeding-edge science.” She also slammed that in regards to the pic’s VFX: ” It’s difficult not to wish that more of those hours had been spent telling a really good story instead of tweaking tech and shiny breasts.”

‘Alita’s Agita At The Domestic B.O.: James Cameron Production Headed To $37M+ Over Five Days

We're gonna see it tonight or tomorrow, but I'm going in with very low expectations. I'm a big fan of both Rodriguez and Cameron, but I have to say I hated the look of Sin City because I thought it was "a stylized movie done for the sake of stylizing," and I share the above critics comment about the need to spend more hours coming up with a good story instead of flash VFX.

Note that the story again points to the need for a $170M blockbuster film to make 2-1/2 times the budget just to break even. And that doesn't mean it's profitable... that just means it didn't lose money.

 

Maybe they should skip the motion stuff and just hired Anne Hathaway