The Growing Potential within ‘Alita: Battle Angel’: A Review

✯✯✯✯

A combination of the creative forces of Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron already sounds like it could be odd enough as is – considering we’re also looking at a filmmaker known for making stylized B-movies working together with someone who tries to make the most out of what he can with massive budgets. It’s a pairing that already sounds odd enough as is on paper, yet the actual results already leave me wanting more. Many films have also tried and unsuccessfully adapted anime to the big screen for English-language viewers, with films like 2017’s Ghost in the Shell or Death Note being the biggest culprits, yet what Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron bring you in Alita: Battle Angel is something that feels almost like it could easily have been something out of the ordinary. But I already see great potential arising out of this story having come to the screen, with having found its footing – but only time will tell if we’ll ever get a chance to see this story reaching greater lengths. It’s a blockbuster that would without doubt benefit from having a sequel coming along the way, because there’s a lot to admire about the world building present in here – and even allowing its own ideas to resonate and grow into something greater.

Continue reading →

Advertisement

The Dark Tower – Review

Adapting Stephen King to film is a complicated case, knowing that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had taken liberties with its source material to the scorn of King himself. With that having been said, it still remains the best of the many adaptations that King’s work has spawned, but perhaps the case with “Stephen King done right” as proven by the Shining miniseries would only have proven itself disastrous, so fan reactions to The Dark Tower could set expectations in place for they didn’t get what they would have wanted as a means of introducing a story they love to newcomers. Coming in with a newcomer’s perspective for I’ve only read the first book in the series and wasn’t a fan, I already feel the anger that such an audience would have felt to see something they loved bastardized the way Nikolaj Arcel did so here.

Continue reading →