Alita: Battle Angel

I didn't want to write about this movie before it had been released because it is so fantastic. One of the most highly anticipated movies of the year and for a good reason. James Cameron (Avatar) is back producing it and with him comes the technology used in Avatar to create the character of Alita.

Manga lovers will appreciate this movie even more as there is space to grow and develop because *spoiler alert* it doesn't end properly.

First things first: when you watch this movie, watch it in Imax 3d, it is phenomenal. It is so much more real in 3d than it ever would be in 2d.
This is the tail of a character, who is thrown down from the city above called Zalem and is only left with a head and a heart. A doctor locates her in the scrapyard and gives her a new body, thus bringing her back to life. Alita starts to learn how to use her body and discovers that she is a trained fighter. As she is fighting she starts to remember things and makes a friend. Her friend takes her to a fallen ship and there she locates her new body. The body that was designed for people of her kind and only her kind. She becomes a hunter warrior in the attempt to make enough money to help send Hugo (Keean Johnson) to Zalem. The only way to do this is to ask Vector (Mahershala Ali) to send you up to Zalem in exchange for a fee.

Alita (Rose Salazar) battles in contests and all of it is thoroughly entertaining. She is, of course, accompanied by Hugo and Doctor Ido (Christoph Waltz), who gave her a body and raises her. By the end of this movie there is no love interest. By doing that Robert Rodriguez has eliminated the possibility of weakening her character for love in any future movies.

This movie is just thoroughly enjoyable. As far as action goes, it is packed with it. The stunts are phenomenal but not unreal and there are no really cheesy lines in the script writing. Both Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron have done themselves proud with this movie and have a really great thing going, should they chose to continue it. Jennifer Connelly plays the wife of Doctor Ido, who has been working for Vector in exchange for a return to Zalem but in the end she stops doing the wrong things and starts doing the right things. Her character is another strong character with so much room for development and it is really exciting to think of the possibilities for this franchise. 

Just make sure that you watch this film and for your own sake, spend the extra money and watch it in 3d.

Glass

The movie that gave off a similar feel to the movie 'Unbreakable' and featuring a similar cast in the personel of Samuel L Jackson and Bruce Willis. Add the comic book feel and the references to them and you have yourself a sequel to 'Unbreakable'. I joke. This movie is not a sequel and once you add James McAvoy to the line up you start to realise how even though it looked like a X-Men type of movie to start with, it really isn't.

This movie is a chance for James McAvoy to reignite his acting career. He has made some terrible decisions with movie choice, making movies such as 'Wanted' and 'X-Men Apocalypse' (where the scripting writing was terrible' and hasn't really ever shown much of his talents, rather playing on his looks than anything else. In Glass, he takes on a character who has 24 different personalities and he plays them all exceptionally well. He is psychotic and thoroughly convincing throughout. I think that we probably all had doubts about his credentials and assumed that his career was going down the drain. We would have all watched this movie for Samuel L Jackson and accepted that McAvoy was going to be bad but that we would look past him because we were focusing on the rest of the movie but that really wasn't the case. When you think that Bruce Willis is always just himself in movies then I have to admit that McAvoy was actually the star of the movie. 

Superheroes... sound familiar? Glass is about a man called Elijah. We're not really sure if he is actually a superhero or if he is just a tactical genius. He manages to orchestrate the creation of two superheroes. I don't want to explain how as that destroys the point of the movie but he manages to make it so that all three of them are in the same mental institution. Bruce Willis is exceptionally strong, James McAvoy has a character called 'The Beast' and he can become very strong, very aggressive and climb up things without a problem. Naturally, where there are superheroes, there are government agencies trying to cover it up and make them think that they are normal. This plan doesn't work because Mr. Glass manages to override all the cameras and live stream their escape to the relatives of each of these three characters. 

Spoiler... all three characters die but the live feed of their escape, from the 100 cameras inside of this institution is sent to the relatives and the relatives upload for the world to see. 

This movie is set up for a sequel but I would hope that the production team will take their time with it and make sure that the script is good because they shouldn't just pull out more superheros in the same city because that we be predictable and rather stupid. This agency admits that there are people with unnatural powers but also accepts that where there are heroes, there are always villains and that this creates conflict and therefore they attempt to remove both without anyone realising. They were all prepared to move on to the next city and that is what they should do. Glass was the setup. Other than his brain, he had no powers. His bones shattered easily and it made him easy to kill but he was exceptionally intelligent. 

The lack of real powers and the lack of an obvious hero and villains makes this film different, which is probably why it topped the box office. Glass is memorable and more psychological than most other superhero like movies. You will remember it and you may also spend time wondering about Mr. Glass and if he really did have special powers or if it was more chance than anything else. 

Samuel L Jackson delivers the performance that we have come to expect from him. We have got used to him being a bit weird and different in some of the roles that he has taken on over the decade but that is why we love him. He can do more than just be, there is no other way of saying i, 'a dude'. 

Sarah Paulson is one to keep an eye on. She has this way of taking on roles in smaller films or taking on roles where you may not remember her because she is overshadowed by a bigger name. She has taken on roles in '12 Years A Slave' and 'Carol', as the first two that spring up after 'Glass' when you search her on 'IMDB'. I have seen both of those movies and now that I see them listed I start to remember her but I couldn't without the prompt. Sometimes being forgettable isn't a bad thing. It's not that we forgot her, its just that we made the mistake of overlooking her in smaller roles. If she ever takes on a role that earns her awards then we will all make a point of allocating her a place in our memory, rather than storing her somewhere in the desert of our long term memory and throwing away the key. She was in Ocean's 8 and was fantastic in that movie as well but again, the prompt was needed to make the connection. For some people, this type of career is enough. Take the role, do it well, make successful movies but avoid the spotlight and be able to dictate your career in terms of doing the movies or series that you want rather than having this audience demand to take on weird roles or bigger movies that are so often a huge flop.

I would say to anyone who hasn't seen it, make sure that you catch this movie while there is still time because it is different to most things being released at this moment in time and so much better than the 'Avengers' movies.