In the first 30 minutes of the film, there is no story to tell, just shopping to introduce the world and history. This is normal. Although the narrative efficiency is relatively low, it can be tolerated, especially when it comes to the setting of the steel city. It is a surface city that exists for Salem, the only remaining sky city. Its center is a Huge garbage dump, every day Salem throws all kinds of mechanical garbage into this dump. The protagonist Alita (No. 99) was picked up here by Dr. Yide - actually translated as Ide, sorry for the deduction of the homophonic stem, this name is really too interesting - picked up.
The look of Steel City reminds me of Columbia from Ready Player One and Wakanda from Black Panther:
However, shopping for 30 minutes does not satisfy the need to explore the world. Basically, it shows the audience a task board: Look at this Salem, how high is it, I want to climb it! Look at how expensive these mechanical parts are, I'm going to knock out innocent transformants and rob them! Look at this centurion, how fierce, you want to cut them down! Look at this ball, how fun it is, you have to play it too! Look at this fierce bounty hunter with a knife, what a stinky fart, you want to slash his face and grab his knife! Look at this black brother, he looks like a bad guy, he is the villain (not), you have to stab him!
Sky City is a very Japanese setting. The original book adapted from this film is the Japanese manga "Gun Dream" produced by Yukito Kijo. Its founding happened just before and after the release of Hayao Miyazaki's "City in the Sky". Of course, this setting can be traced back to the flying island country in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". This kind of setting has also appeared in Cameron's previous work, yes, "Avatar". In this work, the sky city of Salem is used to represent a ruling class world whose existence is visible but how it works is completely unknown to the citizens of the steel city. Whether Cameron intends to insinuate reality through this film's very vivid depiction of class solidification, I have no way of knowing, but to be honest, the "defense ring" that appears twice in the film is really amazing. The United States was ordered to enter a "state of emergency".
The film visually inherits the style of another director, Robert Rodriguez, who is also the film's true byline director. The famous cult film director, who filmed "The Torment Room" with Quentin Tarantino, used the image of a beautiful woman with a machine gun as a prosthesis as early as "Planet of Terror".
Of course, those who are familiar with Robert Rodriguez's works know that his films are often full of flesh and blood, and it is common for all kinds of organs to be chopped up and scattered all over the screen like a fruit ninja. In this film, due to the large number of mechanical prosthetics, this visual design can be fully inherited under the premise of North American grading PG-13. From the first shot at the beginning of the film, Dr. Ide picked up the abandoned mechanical eyeball and wiped it into the bag, to Alita's surprisingly large eyeball, and then to Gruishka's entire eye socket being fisted and Chiren is made into a vat... Rodriguez is literally on the brink of danger. If you come out of the cinema and look back and think about the various ways to die in the film: the head is smashed, the head is embedded in the iron door, the neck is broken, and the limbs are cut into various forms by chain-type weapons or defense rings. Fragments, the whole head and a full set of mechanical prosthetics were thrown against the wall and exploded into fireworks, and were pulled into the middle of super huge gears and crushed by chains. Cut in half... any of the above plots are replaced by real people and this film has to be R-rated immediately.
By the way, Leta Kalogridis, another signed screenwriter of the film, has previously worked on the American drama "Copy" invested by Netflix, in which there are also mechanical prosthetic reinforcements, and other works such as "Terminator" in the sequence of works. : Genesis and the earlier Marvel Girl contain similar concepts. The screenwriter should have been invited to perfect the details related to the mechanical prosthesis/mechanical transformation in this film.
There are too many places to complain about the plot and worldview: why are the citizens of the steel city still living in this messy city after 300 years, can't they move out? Isn't it beautiful outside? If you can farm, you can settle down if you can. Why is the centurion so cumbersome, why do all the movies like cyberpunk have a completely big and inappropriate robot as a patrolman? What exactly is your tech tree? Mechanization, how to maintain it? Is there a special shop for oiling, which can replace the bathhouse? Eating oranges and eating chocolate, how is bioenergy converted into mechanical energy? How do you say "Blue Ocean and Blue Sky" is "Blue Ocean and Blue Sky", after diving for so long, oh yes, do you still have lungs? The city area of Salem is so large, wouldn't the population explode? How could a large number of people live there? Oh, and the whole family will be expelled if you are sick, right? That's quite understandable—what a mess! What kind of disease will be expelled, what kind of ruling logic do you have. Why is the Iron City such a wasteland? Isn't your technology very developed?
Alita's characters are very similar to Jason Bourne. They all appear on the stage without knowing who she is, gradually discovering that she has combat skills, and then gradually realizing her mission - to fight against the system that tries to destroy her. Jason Bourne meets Mary, and Alita meets Dr. Ide and Hugo. Mary died later, and Hugo died too (Senior Dang suggested that he was playing "Titanic", which made me laugh to death). Compared with Jason Bourne, Alita's change has a sense of growth because the starting character is a girl. Moreover, the relationship between Alita and Ide is also a little ambiguous. After all, Ide used her as a substitute for her daughter at first. I thought there would be some extreme conflicts in this part, but she was destroyed by a bar fight. The play is resolved - Ide is no longer preventing her from going to the ball game, which was impossible before the change. This kind of drama is really baffling. Conflict is solved by avoiding conflict, this is lazy writing.
Alita's character movement is relatively clear, and she is better than "Wonder Woman" in terms of her naivety. The heart-pulling scene is very good and has a strong impact. Of course, it also has the advantage of the story background, and it is unlikely that a living person will take out their hearts. And the Chinese audience will love this scene, Bi Gan sees his loyalty and loyalty, and Alita sees his sincerity.
Other characters are not so well written. The scene where Hugo found his mate to quit the heist squad, I don't know why it had to happen at the same time as Alita's ball game, and there was a parallel cut, you didn't understand why he quit suddenly, and then you realized He made this decision because he was moved by Alita. But the previous scene has no foreshadowing, you can at least shoot it like this: [In the previous scene, Hugo and Alita were together with a text message, and the picture that said "There is a new task", Give Hugo another contemplative expression], and the audience's emotions are all hanged by Alita's upcoming pursuit, how can they understand Hugo's actions at this time?
The final villain Nova's name means new star, which is used in many movies to represent hope, such as the little girl Nova in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes: The Ultimate Battle". But in this film it seems to be the other way around, Nova is referring to the bad system and the old forces instead?
The moment Edward Norton took off his glasses at the end was a bit handsome!
View more about Alita: Battle Angel reviews
