Zigzwag Props “Joseph Clairmont”

I went into this movie like a lot of the ones that are based on Graphic Novels/Manga, As someone who doesn't REALLY know about the source material, In that I don't have anything to compare it too, I judge films IMPARTIALLY as a standalone object, and in this I definitely have to give ALITA a pass. I think that one of the things that ALITA does really well is create a world, the grungy cyberpunk feel is very constant throughout. It's a world full of history, interesting characters, and concepts! Though at times there would be discussions about events that happened before the movie took place that I felt probably should have had a bit more of an explanation. At times this movie felt like a second installment of a franchise, as they talk about things and you are left thinking "yeah, go on?" and then they don't leaving you to wonder what must have actually happened. I do understand the reasoning behind it as a premise to the story being that she doesn't really know who she is, and through the story she slowly learns chunk, by chunk. However at the end of the film due to it's wide 'history' you still feel as though you don't really know as much as you should about ALITA as you want to. Everything in the film from the people, the society, the games that they play, and the architecture all feel like they tell a story, at times showing through high flying, high speed flights across crumbling buildings, to quiet moments in a market. Never once do you feel that something in the world shouldn't really be there. That being said, it's due to the vast lore of the world that the film draws it's inspiration, there are some aspects of it that you would find introduced at the beginning of the film only to have them not turn out to be as big of a threat as you imagined them being. It is really easy through this film to see the influence of James Cameron. The 3D elements of the film are well done, and I felt as though they don't really take you out of the movie. Due to the hybrid nature of the film from the offset never actually look too far out of place. One of my favorite moments in the movie itself actually happens to be a CGI effect, which is something I usually won't say about a movie. Of course most of the big budget CGI elements are done in slow motion which looks AWESOME, as they flow fluidly through the high paced fight scenes. Characters: Starting with ALITA herself, she is an absolute BADASS character, her story development flows very well as a LOT of the story is centralized around her. With a high level of screen time you really start to feel connected with her as she learns how to be 'alive' again. A character with a never take no for an answer attitude, definitely gets the stamp of approval from me. There was only a few times through the film where the uncanny valley pinged, as she had this odd face down look up smile that looked almost serial killer-esque. One of my favorite things about her character was that she was fallible, she wasn't perfect and at times through the film would actually lose! I know it's odd to root for a hero to loose, but for me I find that a character that looses is one that can only get better as the story goes on! and ALITA definitely gets that mark from me! The other Characters in this film were also very well written, their dialogue was fluid and never REALLY got in the way of plot progression. It was quite a nice turn of events to see Christoph Waltz shedding his typecast coat for this movie! I really enjoyed every scene he was in, not to mention that his character had an arch that actually had me guessing at times which was a breath of fresh air! Story: I find that this story is VERY hard to talk about without getting into spoiler territory, This film has decent pacing, though as I stated above it felt as though it only really just scraped the surface. It's in this that I find ALITA struggles a little bit. I can't help but feel that this film would have had more chance to grow if it was done as an episodic series then a feature film. There was a VAST well of characters introduced, some