Movie Review - Alita: Battle Angel

Earth 2563: Where fortunate humans live in a floating city named Zalem, and the less-fortunate live below,in a dystopian wasteland named Iron City. Life is harsh in Iron City, with its inhabitants struggling to survive. An aggressive and potentially deadly game called Motorball, provides an escape for those living in Iron City. It’s a popular sport to both play and watch, with the top athlete competing for a chance to move to Zalem, a life-changing fantasy out of reach for most people.

Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) has a medical practice in Iron City, where he focuses on repairing robotic limbs. He has many patients, especially those who have been injured while playing Motorball or people who have used robotics to enhance their human bodies. While searching through a junkyard, Ido comes across Alita (Rosa Salazar), a cyborg with a human brain. We later learn that Alita was part of a elite military group that fought on Mars and her body had been dumped, with the expectation that it would never be found. Alita is a skilled warrior and quite dangerous, but her mind is of a teenage girl and she can only remember parts of her previous life through flashbacks.

Alita develops a crush on a boy named Hugo (Keean Johnson), who introduces her to Motorball and shows her the dark side of Iron City, including bounty hunters who are contracted to kill local criminals. Hugo has a dream of getting to Zalem and is willing to engage in criminal activity to realize his goals. He keeps this part of his life secret from Alita. Alita learns that her caretaker, Ito, is a bounty hunter and learns that he also has secrets, including people who want him dead.

Alita may still be recovering from amnesia, but her physical body and fighting skills are incredible and she uses them to fight those who would hurt her and those she loves. As Alita learns more about Zalem, Iron City, and her own past, she begins to understand her purpose and what she needs to do to change the world.

My husband and I saw Alita: Battle Angel, while waiting for our car to be serviced. It wasn’t necessarily a movie that we were dying to see, but it was the one that was playing at the right time. I had no expectations.

Cliche sums up my feelings.

Overall, Alita: Battle Angel is an entertaining film. It’s fun and engaging. It’s full of cliches as far as dystopian films go, not necessarily an original idea or story world. It has exciting fight sequences and it’s thrilling to see a young, female protagonist kick-ass. I also loved that Christoph Waltz plays a good-guy, which was the biggest surprise and least cliche aspect of the film!

The special effects, including the CG Animated Alita look great. Alita is an odd character. I loved her when she was fighting, but I was bothered by her wide-eyed innocence and overly girlish behavior early in the film. Her crush on Hugo is annoying. She is reduced to a cliche teenage girl. following a boy around like a puppy, basically willing to do anything that he asks. She is so naieve. Hugo is a far more interesting character than Alita. He has ambitions and conflicts. Alita’s primary conflict is that she doesn’t know who she is, making her passive, rather than active. She becomes active when she goes into battle, but it’s far less interesting than Hugo’s character conflicts. It’s a bit like The Hunger Games. Katniss is far more interesting when she has the emotional conflict of putting herself in danger to save her sister, than she is when she is simply angry and fighting. Conflict and confusion, is more interesting than rage.

I can appreciate that Alita: Battle Angel is adapted from manga. I have not read the source material, but it is clear that there was a lot of story that needed to be edited or simplified for the telling of the film. Also, it is clear from the ending, and I have since confirmed from the internet, that this is intended to be a trilogy. I think the writers did a solid job of condensing the story world in a way that makes sense to someone unfamiliar with the manga, but I also could tell that there was a richer story to be told. I wondered why this was made into a movie and not a television series. Television seems like it would be a better fit.

I’m not sure that I will see the subsequent films if they are made, but Alita: Battle Angel was an entertaining way to spend an afternoon.

Book Review- Lisa Jewell's Watching You

Thank you to Atria Books for providing me with a copy of Lisa Jewell’s latest novel, Watching You, in exchange for an honest review.

A brutal murder has taken place in one of the beautiful Victorian home in the affluent Melville Heights neighborhood in Bristol, England. In acclaimed novelist Lisa Jewell’s latest crime novel, Watching You, the reader quickly realizes that there are as many suspects, as there are potential victims and we will not know the truth of the situation until the final moments of the story.

I’ve read several of Jewell’s previous novels and she is simply a master at writing crime fiction. This is not a genre that I often read, yet I am thrilled every time she publishes a new book, because I know that I will love it. Watching You is no exception. Jewell knows exactly how to pace her novels to keep readers engaged. She always has a twist that is unexpected, yet makes perfect sense when you rethink through the hints that she has been cleverly dropping throughout the entire novel. At the very start of Watching You, we are told that a murder has taken place and we know that one of the characters is being questioned as a suspect, yet we do not know the murder victim until the last chapters of the novel. It’s brilliant.

More than a crime novel, Watching You is a solid drama. Jewell’s characters are having affairs, teenagers navigating first love, and families in crisis. The drama is as equally important as the crime element. I feel that this is a strong reason for why I gravitate towards Jewell’s novels. She has rich, well-rounded characters who are facing difficult situations. The crime element ups the stakes and intensifies their troubles, but it is not the root or only cause of tension in the story. Jewell’s characters are complex and troubled, even if murder wasn’t on their street.

Watching You is creepy. It has themes of power and dominance, especially through the character of Tom Fitzwilliam, a school headmaster in his early 50’s. Tom has a history of showing attention to young women. He’s charismatic and someone that women, young and old, tend to crush on. Throughout the entire story, we never quite know if Tom is a villain or victim. Is he a predator or misunderstood? The character of Tom reminded me of one of my college professors, who lost his career for predatory behavior. I never had an inappropriate situation with him, but I did get swept up by his charisma and when he was very publicly fired, it was both a shock and not a shock at all. I kept imagining this professor, every time Tom was on the page.

Culpability is a theme throughout Watching You. The recently married Joey Mullens, Tom’s neighbor, is enchanted by Tom and has an affair with him. She knows that she bears blame for this decision, yet she can’t help but focus on Tom’s power over her, as if she is possessed. Another character is confronted with her extreme bullying behavior as a teenager. Many decades have passed, but she never took responsibility and now her past has come back to haunt her. As the title implies, we are all being watched and cannot hide from our sins.

Watching You is a page turner and I was enthralled until the last word. I think this might just be my favorite Jewell novel yet.

Book Review- Karen Thompson Walker's The Dreamers

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group for providing me with a copy of Karen Thompson Walker’s novel, The Dreamers, in exchange for an honest review.

In California, the small college town of Santa Lora has been struck with an unusual and highly infectious disease. Its citizens are falling into a deep sleep, lasting from weeks to over a year. No one knows why it is happening, how to cure it, or how to stop it from spreading. It afflicts all age groups and strikes so suddenly, that those whose bodies go undiscovered, quickly die of dehydration. Karen Thompson Walker’s novel follows several citizens of Santa Lora, who are desperate to keep from becoming infected, as they are stuck within the city limits during a mandatory town quarantine.

The Dreamers is a force of a novel. I could not put it down. I was most struck by the way in which Walker imagined this catastrophic situation, creating a range of scenarios and human emotions. For example, how would a new father trying to protect his newborn react when the two young girls from next door need his help? How would college students, sensing that their lives might soon end, interact when thrown together in an intimate situation? How do two children survive, when their father falls asleep? One character, a college student who is an early victim, takes ill shortly after becoming pregnant. She doesn’t even realize that she is pregnant, yet her baby grows while she is asleep. Even if she survives the disease, how will it affect her baby?

I loved The Dreamers, but I do have a criticism. The story is too short to contain all of the intriguing scenarios that Walker mentions. It’s as if she had too many great ideas and could not flesh them out in the space. For example, little attention is paid to a storyline in which a nursing home patient with memory loss temporarily regains his memory. This whole scenario could be an entire story. It’s fascinating and made even more compelling when we realize the result of this temporary memory issue. I don’t want to give any spoilers, as it is such a great twist with where this character and his spouse go next. Truly, it could have been the plot for another book and I wish that Walker had explored it more deeply. I felt the ending in general was rushed, when we learn about the dreams that the victims had been experiencing. It was so compelling and unexpected, that I wish Walker had expanded on her ideas.My disappointment all stems from wanting more.

The Dreamers is intense and unlike any book that I have read. Walker is an excellent storyteller. Her novel has quick pacing that kept me glued to the book. I read it in a single sitting. She has created characters and scenarios that will easily allow readers to empathize and imagine themselves in a similar situation. The Dreamers is a wonderful pick for book clubs and discussion groups, bringing up ideas of health, public safety, and morality. With the recent measles outbreak and debates over mandatory vaccinations, this is a timely novel.

The Dreamers is one of the best books that I’ve read in a long time and I can’t recommend it enough. I had not previously heard of Walker, but I can’t wait to read her first novel, The Age of Miracles and I look forward to her future works.