When Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige announced the ambitious plans for the third phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in 2014, a few of the titles that stood out were ones that many people were hoping would change the field of Super hero movies forever, and as it turns out, they did.  Last year’s Black Panther broke new ground on so many levels, becoming the studio’s highest grossing movie to date while also breaking down so many barriers for black filmmakers, and it even became the first Super Hero film to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.  In addition, you also saw other risks taken by Marvel in Phase 3 that established the order within their already established franchises, like Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017).  And then came the mind-blowing conclusion of Avengers: Infinity War, which is one of the boldest moves ever taken by multi-billion dollar franchise and one that showed that the people at Marvel were not afraid to go to dark places with their movies.  Now, as the Phase 3 plans begin to wrap themselves up, and lay the foundation for what comes next, we are now being given yet another important move on the part of Marvel to break new ground in both the MCU as well as in cinema in general.  One of the many complaints that has come Marvel’s way throughout the year’s is the fact that up to now, none of their movies put the spotlight on a female super hero.  Sure, there are characters like Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and Elizabeth Olson’s Scarlet Witch who are part of the Avengers team, but they’ve never had their own movie that focused just on them.  But, now Marvel hopes to rectify this by bringing to the big screen their first Super Hero movie based around not just one of their most important heroines, but perhaps on of the most powerful characters in their entire gallery of heroes; the intergalactic Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel has one of the more complicated origins in comic book history.  Created by Stan Lee and Gene Colon back in 1967, the character’s first incarnation was actually male; an alien Kree soldier named Mar-Vell who was exiled to Earth after being branded a traitor by his home planet, and would later ally himself with the Avengers in their eventual battles against the Kree Empire.  Mar-Vell’s origins would eventually be ret-conned many times, and the identity of Captain Marvel would actually pass on to many other people over the years.  Eventually, the character of Carol Danvers was given the identity of Captain Marvel starting in 2012.  Danvers, a Chuck Yaeger-style test pilot born and raised on Planet Earth, gave the character a distinctly feminine identity while still maintaining all the previous qualities that the character had established for itself over the decades prior.  And with that, Marvel finally had an established character that could help give them the chance to finally have that long awaited film centered on a female super hero.  Unfortunately, the movie has become the unfair target of online bigotry because of it’s intention to spotlight the character’s historic significance within the MCU.  A coordinated attack on the film’s Rottentomatoes.com rating by many anti-feminist trolls tried to bring the overall score down by many false negative reviews, and it feels very reminiscent of a similar preemptive attack to undermine Black Panther’s  chances of success from last year (which of course didn’t work and actually backfired).  Actress Brie Larson has tried to stay above the noise surrounding this, though her dismissive comment about the opinions of “white male critics”, regardless of whether she’s right or not, was effectively like kicking a hornets nest, and has unfortunately cast a dark cloud of controversy over a movie that should have been judged without the taint of taking a side on the so-called “culture war.”  Despite all what is going on outside of the movie itself, we now have a film that introduces this very important character to Marvel’s incredible universe, and it’s time to see once and for all if the wait was worth it, or if it’s a whole lot to do about nothing.

For the first time since Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), the MCU has rolled back the clock to a time in the past as the setting for it’s introduction of it’s hero.  Although, this time, we are only going back 20 years, to the mid-1990’s.  Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) lives on the Kree home planet of Hala, where she lives and trains with an elite band of inter-planetary special forces.  She has no memory of her past life before her six years living with the Kree, nor how she gained her immense powers, and goes only by the name Vers.  Her commander, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) trains her to keep her powers and emotions in check, which she believes is essential to becoming a better fighter against the Kree’s mortal enemy; the shape-shifting Skrulls.  Vers’ team travels on a mission to a Skrull home base, where they are to retrieve one of their spies before an air bombardment is deployed by Kree battleships, commanded by Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace).  However, they are ambushed and Vers is captured.  The Skrulls use a machine to investigate Vers buried memories, where they discover the identity of a Dr. Wendy Lawson (Annette Benning), which is the same face that’s presented to Vers whenever she is communing with Supreme Intelligence, the AI commander of all Kree civilization.  After Vers escapes the Skrulls, she ends up crash-landing on the nearby planet the Kree classify as C-35, known to us as Earth.  There, she is intercepted by agents from S.H.I.E.L.D., including a still fresh on assignment Agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and his new cadet Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg).  After the Kree find her and attempt to kill her, she teams up with a compliant Fury and the two set out to uncover what’s really going on regarding Dr. Lawson, her Project Pegasus, and how Vers is somehow connected to all that, with their only lead being a friend from Vers’ past life she can’t remember; Maria Lambeau (Lashana Lynch).  All the while, they are still hunted by the Skrulls, lead by their General Talos (Ben Mendelsohn).

Taking the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in time to a different era I think was a smart move on the movies part, because it frees up the story to have it’s own identity seperate from what else is going on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  There are brief references to other elements of the universe (Guardians of the Galaxy villain Ronan making an appearance for example) but for the most part, this is a story that stands on it’s own and for the most part, it works really well.  I’ll say this, it’s not a particularly ground-breaking film in the way that Black Panther was, nor a game changer like Infinity War.  It’s an origin story first and foremost and as far as those go within the MCU, this one is extremely effective.  I especially like the fact that the movie doesn’t busy itself with having to watch Captain Marvel learn the ropes of Super Hero-dom in order to become who she was meant to be.  From the moment the movie opens, she is already an established fighter who already is aware of the limits of her incredible powers.  Instead, the movie works as an investigation into what she has lost in the process of gaining her powers, and how the things that are buried deep down inside of her is what really makes her a super hero, and not the cosmic energy that flows through her.  The movie does a very fine job of unraveling this part of her story and it helps to break the film away from other like-minded Marvel origin stories.   It also wisely avoids the fish-out-of-water trope that’s already been done before in other Marvel films, as Captain Marvel finds herself perfectly adept at carrying out her mission no matter what planet or time period she’s in.  And this really helps to make it work on it’s own as a stand alone story.  There’s no need to read up on tons of pre-established Marvel lore, or re-watch all the MCU movies to understand what’s going on.  It’s all very simple; she’s Captain Marvel, she’s immensely powerful, and it’s all about piecing together the reason why deep down this is the person she is.

The main complaint that I can lay upon the movie is that it perhaps doesn’t quite feel as revolutionary as a part of the MCU as one would like.  The aspect of having a female super hero at it’s center is historic enough, but in terms of theme, tone, and visualization, the movie doesn’t really push the medium to anything really different.  It doesn’t have the wildly bold choices of something like Ragnarok or Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), where tone took a complete u-turn in those franchises from what we’ve seen in the past.  And of course, Black Panther challenged so many cinematic norms in both it’s characterizations as well as with the visuals, all helping to bring the Kingdom of Wakanda to spectacular life.  Captain Marvel by contrast feels more generic visually and formulaic in it’s plot.  Though still engaging, the movie doesn’t offer too many surprises.  You know the plot twists before they happen, and character motivations all come together in unfortunately expected ways.  I would have like to have maybe seen a little more doubt cast in the character of Captain Marvel, especially when she grapples with the reality of her identity and how that contrasts with the lies she has been told for years.  Essentially, the movie brushes too quickly over some of that, and though I understand why the movie does some of that, it still feels like the movie lacks a bit of something that could have helped to elevate it a little further.  Also, the movie has the unfortunate timing of coming to theaters after Wonder Woman (2017), a rare case where DC has actually beaten Marvel at the movies.  Wonder Woman was such a groundbreaking film in terms of female empowerment and representation within this genre, and Captain Marvel unfortunately lacks the same kind of inspirational impact that it’s predecessor did.  Young female audiences will still no doubt appreciate Captain Marvel as a character, but her impact on the big screen feels lessened because Wonder Woman got there first.  In the end, it feels unwarranted for this movie to have carried all the controversy, because it is neither a pro-feminist battle cry that trolls claim it to be, nor a let down that reflects badly on super heroines everywhere.  The movie does it’s job of establishing her presence, and little else.

The thing that I appreciate about the movie more than anything is the great comradery that it builds between Captain Marvel and Nick Fury.  Fury is a very different character here than we’ve seen before in past Marvel films, and it’s great to see Sam Jackson finally be able to cut loose as the character.  This is a version of Nick Fury that is less cynical, more compassionate, and with both eyes intact.  Even more amazing is the sophistication that Marvel has been able to achieve with it’s de-aging visual effect, which is used through most of the movie to make Nick Fury appear twenty years younger.  Now, it helps that Jackson doesn’t look too much older today than he did back in his 90’s heydays, but the de-aging which has been used to make everyone from Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer in the Ant-Man movies to Kurt Russell in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) all look like their younger selves almost looks seamless at this point, and Captain Marvel showcases the most extensive use of it to date.  And the inclusion of Nick Fury as a part of this story is another great aspect of the movie, because it allows for us to learn more about his story just as well.  Nick Fury has always been a part of the MCU from the very beginning, since his first appearance in Iron Man (2008) a decade ago, telling Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark that he was part of a larger universe that he didn’t know about yet, which laid the groundwork for the Avengers Initiative.  Here, we see exactly what brought Nick Fury to become a part of this larger universe and the movie is just as much an origin story for him as it is for Captain Marvel.  Given that up to now, Nick Fury has been more of a connecting thread rather than the focus of attention, it’s really gratifying to see him fill a much more important and central role in one of these films finally, and giving Sam Jackson more screen time is always a good idea.

It’s also a great thing for the movie because both Jackson and Brie Larson have unbelievable chemistry on screen together.  The film basically turns into a buddy cop movie halfway through, and that made it much more entertaining.  In many ways, Nick Fury brings out the more playful side of Captain Marvel, as she grows more comfortable as she finally realizes she’s got a partner and not a fellow soldier on her side, telling her to follow orders.  Some may find Brie Larson’s performance perhaps a little distant and wooden compared to other super heroes in the MCU, but given the context of the story, I feel that her performance served the character just find.  She lacks emotion early on because she was conditioned that way when she became a Kree soldier.  Through her teamwork with Nick Fury and the discovery of her true self, she opens up as the movie goes along and it helps to leave more character development open for later on in future films.  The movie smartly focuses on these two characters and it helps to give the movie a nice humorous tone as they work off of each other.  Some of the other performance offer an interesting range, especially when perceptions of good versus evil begins to change as the movie goes along.  Ben Mendelsohn’s casting as Skrull leader Talos offers a nice little misdirection given the actor’s body of work so far on film.  I also really appreciate that the Skrulls were brought to life through prosthetic make-up and not as CGI animations, which really helps to give them more personality, especially when the actors work so hard to act through the layers of masking.  Annette Benning’s casting in multiple parts also givens the movie an elevated sense of ethereal class, and it’s great seeing her present in a movie like this.  Returning actors like Lee Pace and Djimon Hounsou from the Guardians of the Galaxy aren’t given much to do, but it’s still nice to see them return so that they can help give more continuity to the MCU, and Captain Marvel’s place in it.  A solid and engaged cast really helps to give the movie the personality it needs, and it’s especially welcome given the importance that some of the characters have with the complete Marvel story-line overall.

Captain Marvel comes to theaters amid controversy, which I hope dies a quick death so that the movie itself can stand on it’s own merits and free of petty politics that are trying to destroy it.  Is it Marvel at it’s absolute best; no, but I don’t think it really needs to be.  Captain Marvel is a starting point for something else; a cinematic beginning for a character who is going to play an important part of the future of the MCU.  Sure, it would have been nice to see Marvel attempt to exceed expectations rather than just merely meet them, but I can’t complain too much when the movie is still a fun romp with great character and interesting ideas.  The movie is absolutely worth seeing for the Captain Marvel and Nick Fury moments alone, and they make one of the most charming pairs we’ve seen from Marvel yet.  It would have been interesting to see how different the reception to this movie would’ve been had it come out before Wonder Woman; would we be talking more about how groundbreaking this movie was instead.  It’s too bad that Marvel had to take this long to finally make a movie centered around one of their most important heroines.  Regardless, she is here now and the MCU is the better for her inclusion.  My hope is that this opens the floodgates for all the other heroines in the Marvel canon to finally have their own movies.  Apparently, rumors are that a Black Widow movie is in the works, as well as a mini-series on the Disney+ app that focuses on Scarlet Witch; and those are just the already established characters.  There are literally hundreds more just waiting in the wings, and if Captain Marvel does well, hopefully it’ll convince the top brass at Marvel and Disney to invest more broadly into this market.  Some are trying to knock these kinds of stories down, but like Carol Danvers in the movie, they keep rising back up and press on undaunted, and that’s the important lesson that a movie like this offers.  There’s nothing that a movie like this has to prove other than to be a good story and an inspiration for people looking for hope, and the politics of it all doesn’t matter in the end.  It doesn’t need to be earth-shattering to get that point across.  Captain Marvel is a welcome addition to the pantheon of cinematic super heroes, and by just being true to itself as the character it’s centered on, the movie will undoubtedly stand strong for years to come.

Rating: 8/10

The cinematic career of filmmaker James Cameron has been a fascinating one to say the least.  He rarely outputs new films, usually just one or two a decade (especially more sparse in recent years), and yet when he does finally finish a movie, it breaks every known record imaginable at the box office.  Which is all the more remarkable considering that most of his cinematic choices are usually unconventional.  Make a sequel to a low budget action thriller with nearly quadruple the production budget and features heavy use of this new-fangled technology called CGI: welcome Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1992).  Make a movie about underwater explorers and have the entire thing actually shot under water in a massive, custom built tank; hello The Abyss (1997).  Not to mention spending a then unheard of $200 million on a romantic movie set against the backdrop of the sinking of the Titanic, as well as nearly half a billion perfecting motion capture technology to have half his cast play giant blue, cat-faced aliens.  But, despite all these uncompromising visions, James Cameron still has somehow managed to defy expectations every time, and then some.  Titanic (1997) would go on to win Best Picture at the Oscars as well as become the highest grossing film in history, only to be toppled a decade later by his very next film, Avatar (2009), which is still the worldwide box office champ.  The reason why Cameron’s films have the enormously successful run that they have is because the director always puts the most effort into everything, making sure that his movies are not released until it is ready to blow all our minds.  But, given the increasing amount of time in between all of his movies, he also runs the risk of holding onto a project for too long, to the point where it’s window of relevancy and audience interest.  Keep in mind, we are almost at the decade mark since we saw his last directorial effort with Avatar.  Most other directors in that time, like Spielberg, Scorsese and Tarantino have directed three or more features, and have boldly experimented in new things, growing their talents as filmmakers.  With Cameron tinkering so long on the same things, one worries that he’s running the risk of limiting his growth as a story-teller, leaving a lot by the wayside.

And one of those things that sadly has fallen victim to James Cameron’s long-gestating creative process is a project that he’s had in development for nearly twenty years called Alita: Battle Angel.  Based on a Japanese Manga series published between 1990-95, the dystopian cyberpunk adventure was first brought to Cameron’s attention by filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro not long after Cameron’s incredible success with Titanic.  Cameron instantly fell in love with the manga and sought to develop it into a possible future project for him to direct.  A domain name was bought as early as summer 2000 and the project was announced in active development in 2003.  However, Cameron soon realized that the technology wasn’t available to do justice to the highly stylized world and characters of the manga comic, so the project remained in limbo for many years.  Eventually, James Cameron opted to direct Avatar instead as his next project, using it as a testing ground for perfecting the motion capture technology that he hoped could eventually be used for Alita.  Of course, Avatar made a huge leap forward for the technology, and with that, the possibility for Alita to finally go into production was possible.  However, Cameron was once again side-tracked by his continued involvement in creating multiple sequels to Avatar, something which has taken up all his time these last several years.  Still, he and producing partner Jon Landau always kept this movie in their back pocket, but eventually the time came to the point where they could wait no longer, otherwise they would lose their window of opportunity  So, he had to make the tough decision to hand this pet project of his off to someone else.  In stepped Robert Rodriquez, himself a bold DIY filmmaker in the Cameron mold.  With heavily stylized, CGI enhanced films under his belt like Spy Kids (2001) and Sin City (2005), Rodriquez was more than capable of seeing Cameron’s vision to completion on the big screen, and the project finally went into production in 2016; 13 years after it was first announced.  The only question is, did nearly twenty years of development result in a movie worth all that wait, or is it an anti-climatic finish to a waste of everyone’s time.

The movie is set in the far of future date of 2563, where the Earth has been long devastated by a cataclysmic war with the URM (United Republics of Mars) which has left most of the world barren and unlivable.  One remaining community still lives on in the sky city of Zalem, which hangs over the vast sprawling Iron City where refugees from all over the world have gathered.  There, cyborg scientist Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) finds what remains of a long forgotten cyborg in the trash heap that’s grown from the refuse of Zalem.  He discovers that while the cyborg’s body has long been destroyed, it’s core remains alive and intact, so he reconstructs a new body and brings her back to life.  He gives the cyborg the name Alita (Rosa Salazar), which was the same name of his long deceased daughter.  Though Alita enjoys her new lease on life, she remembers nothing of her past, and Ido keeps her sheltered in order to protect her, which she refuses to fully obey.  After she sneaks out to spy on Ido’s late night activities, she discovers that he is a Hunter-Warrior, which is a class of highly skilled bounty hunters searching for humans and cyborgs alike with a bounty on their head.  In the middle of a skirmish against one particularly ferocious cyborg named Grewishka (Jackie Earl Haley), Alita learns that she has fighting skills known as Panzer Kunst, which makes her exceptionally strong and lethal.  She tries to become a Hunter-Warrior independent of Ido’s wishes, and she enlists the help of a scrap dealer named Hugo (Keean Johnson), whom she develops a crush on.  Hugo dreams of reaching the paradise city of Zalem, and he convinces Alita that she would excell in the dangerous sport of Motorball, which she agrees to.  However, the man in charge of the Motorball games is a ruthless businessman named Vector (Mahershala Ali) who’s been stealing all the best cybertronic equipment available in Iron City, with the help of Dr. Chiren (Jennifer Connolly), Ido’s estranged ex-wife.  Upon discovering Alita, and what she can do, Vector and Chiren plot to have her killed and harvested for her advanced hardware, especially when put under orders from the master of Zalem himself, Nova.

Though the movie is directed by Robert Rodriquez, and features some of his trademark style particularly in the action scenes, make no mistake that Alita: Battle Angel is first and foremost a James Cameron flick.  The attention to detail in the world building is very apparent and you can very clearly see the meticulous work that he put into crafting this world in even the most minute detail.  But, like most other Cameron flicks, it’s clear that almost all the work went into the details of this world and almost none into the story itself.  Let’s face it, James Cameron is director first and foremost and a writer second, and his lack of abilities as a screenwriter are even more problematic here.  Cameron co-wrote the movie with Laeta Kalogridis (2004’s Alexander and 2010’s Shutter Island), with extra material added later by Rodriquez, and all the big flaws of Cameron’s writing style seen in all his other movies are likewise found here too.  If you thought the romantic plot of Titanic was childish and cliche, you’ll find the one between Alita and Hugo even more so here.  And if you thought that the political messages in Avatar were heavy handed and clunky, then you’re going to be smacked like a hammer to the head with the ones in Alita.  Cameron’s strongest suit has never been his writing, often relying too heavily on his actors to salvage the words on the page.  And yet, he still insists on writing all his movies himself.  It becomes even more of a problem with the fact that Alita: Battle Angel is also the first time he has had to adapt a story from another source, which means he has to condense years worth of story into a short two hour length.  The one saving grace for this is that Alita is not a bloated 3 hour extravaganza like some of Cameron’s other features, but it’s clear that in order to stream-line the story, he had to cut out huge chunks in order to get it to 2 hours, and that unfortunately affects the flow of the narrative.  The movie has to deal with an immense amount of lore, and it unfortunately gets shrunken down into heavy exposition delivered consistently throughout the film.  As a result, more important stuff like character development and atmosphere building are sacrificed.  The movie builds this incredible world for us to see, but we’re never allowed to develop an emotional bond to it at all because the movie just plows through it.

Couple this with the fact that the movie unfortunately feels like it’s time has passed it by.  That’s where the way too long development of the movie has hurt it’s chances of ever succeeding.  James Cameron’s movie, had it gone into production early on, could have been ground-breaking and ahead of it’s time, because the world had yet to define a sense of what cyberpunk is as a style, which Alita could have very easily influenced.  Sure there were influential films like Blade Runner (1982) on which Battle Angel drew heavy inspiration from, as well as memorable anime like Ghost in the Shell (1987) and Akira (1988) which also helped to define cyberpunk as a sub-genre.  But, a live action Alita could have been this generation’s ultimate statement, and sadly it missed it’s window by pretty much a decade.  Much like how the John Carter (2012) movie felt too derivative of other films like Star Wars (1977) and Dune (1984), which were ironically influenced by the original Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter novels, Alita comes out in a time where movies that were influenced by the original manga have already come and left their mark and Alita only feels less original as a result.  It’s not even the first manga to get the live action treatment, as other comics like Dragon Ball, Death Note, and Ghost in the Shell have made it to the big screen, and likewise fail every time.  Alita’s timing honestly couldn’t be any worse, because the world has already at this point come to reject this style of movie all together.  That being said, Alita: Battle Angel is a much better film than those, because at least James Cameron is approaching the material with a sense of reverence, and not just using it as a cash grab.  But, had he put more urgency into the project from the beginning, and not waited patiently for the technology to catch up to his vision for how he wanted to make it, Alita could have been that breath of fresh air that might have taken cyberpunk into a whole new level of influence in cinema.

Story issues aside, the movie is lifted up immensely by it’s visuals.  Cameron’s attention to detail is exceptional, as Iron City does feel like a genuine, lived in place.  You could spend countless hours just picking out the large variety of architecture in all the buildings, which range from middle-eastern, to South-American, to inner-city America in influence; feeling very much like how a community of multi-national refugees would attempt to rebuild society in the aftermath of a broken world.  And though his impact on the story is minimal, I do have to credit Robert Rodriquez on his direction of the action scenes, which are well choreographed in the same playful way that he uses to excess in movies From Dusk Til Dawn (1996) and Machete (2010).  Of course, a lot of what people are going to be talking about with this movie is the use of motion capture used to create the cyborg effects on the characters.  This is where the movie unfortunately provides some mixed results.  It’s very clear that most of the work went into perfecting the look of Alita herself.  The thing about her appearance in the movie is that she has to look believably real despite having these giant, anime style eyes, which instantly stands her apart from all the other characters.  That almost makes it an even harder challenge than making the cyber-tronic body of hers appear authentic, because if you make the face look inauthentic, it falls into that creepy, uncanny valley territory.  Thankfully, the effect is done just well enough to not be off-putting and you only occasionally take notice of the effect throughout the movie.  I was, however, more impressed put into the work of another character named Zapan (played by Ed Skerin) whose human face appears on a completely exposed cyborg body, and the effect is incredibly effective and lifelike.  And then there is the opposite end of a character like Jackie Earle Haley’s Grewishka, who might as well be a cartoon character.  Even still, you can tell that the work was put into the visuals of this movie more than anything else, and that’s something to commend all the hard work for.

There’s also a mixed result from the movie’s cast as well.  Again, the actors have to make do with some of that clunky Cameron dialogue, and some fare better than others.  It helps that the movie includes three Oscar winners in it’s cast, and they are usually the ones that work best with the lines they are given.  I did like Christoph Waltz’s role as Dr. Ido, taking a break from his more famous villainous work in other movies to show that he can indeed play a warm, nurturing mentor type as well.  Unfortunately, Mahershala Ali and Jennifer Connolly are sidelined far too often in the movie to ever really give them an ample opportunity to dig into their roles.  Mahershala perhaps fares a little better, given that he’s able to deliver so much menace with just a glance.  Connolly seems particularly wasted, as we know she is capable of far more emotional range than what she is allowed to show here.  Rosa Salazar on the other hand gets perhaps the hardest job in the entire movie as she has to carry the film, and do so underneath her CGI enhanced mask as Alita.  For the most part, she succeeds.  She does manage to make Alita likable enough to want to root for and it is impressive how well she is able to emote through all that motion capture, showing just how far that technology has come.  Though Alita is not particularly well written, she nevertheless stands out as the movie’s most successful character, and she carries the movie well enough to keep it from falling apart completely.  Unfortunately, it’s whenever the story-line with Hugo keeps butting in that the movie completely grinds to a halt.  I’m sure that young Keean Johnson is a fine actor, but he is well out of his limit in this role, becoming the movie’s weakest element overall.  You care so little about Hugo as a character, and I almost feel bad for the actor because there’s not enough natural charisma in the world to save him from his dialogue.  At least with Titanic we had future Oscar winners like Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to elevate Cameron’s ham-fisted script.  Rosa and Keean unfortunately can’t match up, and that is why the movie falls apart as a result, since Cameron hinges so much on their expected chemistry.

Is Alita: Battle Angel a complete disaster?  I wouldn’t exactly say that.  I do have to praise the work that went into the spectacular environment of the movie’s setting and the work the CGI animators put into making the Alita model feel right.  I’m sure that an art book of all the conceptual designs made during the film’s development would be absolutely stunning to flip through, especially considering that there is roughly 15 years worth of material to sift through.  I also like how Alita falls once again into the James Cameron trope of a strong female protagonist at the center of most of his movies; descending from a line that includes Sarah Connor from The Terminator (1984), to Ripley from Aliens (1986) to Rose from Titanic.  It’s only unfortunate that this movie came out perhaps a decade too late and is not as polished as some of the director’s more successful works.  Had James Cameron not been sidetracked so much by Avatar and all it’s sequels, we could have has something truly breakthrough from the highly influential director, and something that would have really pushed his own career into interesting an unexpected directions.  Not only that, but think about the impact that Cameron’s Battle Angel could have had on both the cyberpunk genre in film, as well as the influence of anime within the film industry.  We might have been spared some of those awful anime adaptations in the last decade because Cameron would have set the bar high.  Sadly, Alita: Battle Angel comes to us as a compromised vision, feeling disjointed between the visions of two filmmakers, and containing only a fraction of what it could have been.  The world-building and visual effects are impressive, but there is no emotional attachment, and all that’s left are the glaring flaws which become more pronounced with James Cameron’s sub-par script.  But, it could have been worse, as we’ve seen from the cash-grabs made by Hollywood over the years.  Alita at least comes from the heart, as James Cameron is a true fan of what he’s adapting here.  If only he hadn’t loved it too much to the point where it’s time had passed by.

Rating: 6.5/10

M. Night Shyamalan’s years in Hollywood have been interesting to follow. At the beginning, he was heralded as the next big thing; the Spielberg of his generation as some had called him.  This was in no small part due to the runaway success of his breakthrough film, The Sixth Sense (1999).  The movie became an instant classic, and is renowned more than anything for the way it perfectly executed it’s shocking twist ending.  From that, Shyamalan jumped into his next feature, the comic books inspired thriller Unbreakable (2000), which despite receiving strong reviews among critics performed only a fraction as well as it’s predecessor The Sixth Sense, despite also starring Bruce Willis.  But, he would bounce back with his next film, Signs (2002), which performed very well at the box office, but at the same time also launched the director into a stage in his career that would also be his downfall.  With Signs success, Shyamalan was forced into a position where his brand became centered around one thing, and that was the shocking twist ending.  With every movie thereafter, from The Village (2004) to Lady in the Water (2006) to The Happening (2008), he was continually having to one up what he had made before and it was increasingly undermining his abilities as storyteller.  And even when he tried to branch out into other genres like with The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013), it kept throwing him into further turmoil, as he was increasingly becoming less trustworthy in Hollywood.  But the truth is, the big problem with M. Night’s career wasn’t that he became a bad director overnight; it was that he was continually forced to live up to an unrealistic high standard which made it hard for him to fulfill his abilities as a director.  What he needed was a major reevaluation of his career and a renewed focus on what he was good at.

That’s when Blumhouse Productions stepped in and allowed M. Night to get out of his slump and start making movies that appealed to his own sensibilities, without the pressure of Hollywood’s expectations weighing on his shoulders.  With 2015’s The Visit, Shyamalan had his first critically applauded film in a decade, and that allowed him the clout to return back into the groove that he once started out in, albeit to a smaller degree.  And what he chose to do next pleased many a fan of his earlier work, especially when it became clear what he was planning.  The movie Split (2017) was a taut, tense thriller that represented the best of the director’s style; deliberate pacing, steady camera work, and unnerving performances from his cast.  But, at the film’s end, people discovered probably one of the director’s finest twists to date; that the entire movie was a secret sequel to Unbreakable.  After nearly twenty years, Shyamalan showed that he hadn’t forgotten about his underappreciated gem and clearly intended to return back to the story that apparently has meant a lot to him over the years.  And the timing couldn’t be better either.  Unbreakable has become something of a cult hit ever since it first premiered, with many proclaiming (myself included) that it’s the director’s true masterpiece.  Given the fact that Split not only won him back critically and box office success but also shared a universe with Unbreakable made many of the fans of those films rejoice, because it showed that Shyamalan had just as much affection for the story as well and was ready to bring it back in a big way.  Thus, we now are getting the third in this surprise trilogy with Glass, seeing the once proclaimed director finally reasserting himself in Hollywood the way he has always wanted to.  But, after the long wait, and many distractions along the way, did Shyamalan really return to form, or does Glass take what good will he has left and shatters it.

The movie takes place not long after the events of Split, with a multiple personality disorder patient named Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) hiding in the shadows, committing heinous murders across the city of Philadelphia.  Shifting constantly between 24 different personas, he transforms most dramatically into a creature called the  Beast, which gives him superhuman strength.  Crumb’s activities have, however, been monitored by a vigilante crime-fighter named David Dunn (Bruce Willis), who 19 years prior had discovered his own superpowers by being the only survivor of a horrific train crash, leaving the incident without a scratch.  He runs a security equipment store with his son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), who believes in his dad’s super hero abilities and has been helping him track down criminals with the same surveillance equipment they sell.  They finally track Crumb down to an abandoned factory, where he’s holding four teenage girls hostage.  Dunn manages to subdue Crumb, who’s in his Beast mode at the moment, long enough to help the girls escape, but once their battle reaches the outside, both are subdued by local law enforcement who have the means of exploiting the weaknesses of both super beings.  Following the orders of Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), a psychiatrist who specializes in patients like Dunn and Crumb, the police put both of them in custody at a local psychiatric hospital.  Dr. Staple means to convince each of them that their super powers are just delusions and that they are just as normal as any other person.  Dr. Staple even enlists the help of the lone survivor of Crumb’s attacks, Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) who somehow managed to breakthrough the many personas to bring the original person back, helping him to heal slightly.  But, all the best laid plans are put to the test as another patient quietly plots his own escape; the criminal mastermind Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson).

I personally have always wanted a sequel to the movie Unbreakable.  It was my favorite movie from the year 2000, and I’ve always considered it the best movie that Shyamalan ever made.  It was a brilliant dissection of the mythos of comic books, made in a time when super hero movies were not considered even noteworthy, especially in the wake of failures like Batman and Robin (1997).  But, in the 19 years since it’s release, comic book super heroes have dominated the film landscape, and it has only increased the relevance of Unbreakable’s story ever since.  So, I was thrilled to see Shyamalan make a return to this story and tell a new chapter that revisits the same themes, but in a new era where comic books have far more influence.  The only question is, did his years out in the wild change him too much as a director to ever effectively make this story work again.  The answer is a complicated one.  Throughout Shyamalan’s career, he has rarely found middle ground among critics and fans.  People either love the things he does, or they hate it.  He will always be a polarizing filmmaker, and Glass more than likely will continue that.  I have mixed feelings about this movie myself, but they are not to the polar extremes that I think that most people are going to respond to this movie with.  On the one hand, I was satisfied seeing these characters return and watching them interact with each other, but on the other hand, the story is a bit of a mess.  Keep in mind, Shyamalan’s movies have resulted in much worse results in the past, so I have to take this into perspective as well.  The movie is not terrible by any means, and in fact does work for most of the film’s running time.  But, as a follow up to two of the his best films to date, this is easily the weakest in the so-called Unbreakable trilogy.  He’s managed to disappoint, but to a degree that I don’t think shreds the rest of his reputation nor shames the movies that have come before it.

Where the movie faults is in the execution of it’s larger themes.  M. Night has many talents, but one of his less reliable ones is screenwriting.  He certainly is able to effectively weave a mystery through most of his movies, which has made him an expert in subverting the audiences expectations and hiding the surprise twist in plain sight.  But it’s in the dialogue where he begins to show his limitations.  Characters in his movies speak their dialogue in this weird sort of way which really takes you out of the movie.  Essentially, they speak like their words are specifically chosen to deliver important plot information, and not spoken in a natural, real life sort of way.  This has always been a problem in Shyamalan movies and is particularly problematic here in Glass.  Not one character talks like a normal human being, and you just get the sense that Shyamalan is writing this dialogue more for himself as a way of navigating through his story rather than allowing the the story to unfold naturally.  He also relies heavily on plot conveniences which again don’t feel genuine.  Security guards are conveniently incompetent at this mental hospital.  The remedy for subduing the inmates there, like the water hoses used on Dunn and the light flashes used on Crumb have somehow been figured out, despite the fact that both men have kept their abilities secret.  It’s the kind of plot conveniences that become annoying the more you analyze them.  But the movie really goes off the rails in it’s third act when Shyamalan’s indulgent style begins to loose it’s foundation, and every new twist is delivered in the clunkiest way possible.  Where it really starts to affect the movie negatively is in undermining the effectiveness of the film’s themes.  Essentially, Shyamalan throws it in our face the parallels between this story and comic book lore, with Mr. Glass in particular stating as much with his own observations, as if Shyamalan doesn’t trust his audience to figure it out themselves.  He’s got to remember that we’ve had a decade’s worth of Marvel movies dominating pop culture as a whole, so the themes of this movie should already be familiar.  We don’t need it beaten into our heads.

But, even despite the lazy plot and the clunky dialogue, there are a lot of things that shine in the movie.  For one thing, even though his writing skills still haven’t recovered over the years, Shyamalan’s abilities as a director are greatly improving, and showing once again the creativity that really defined his early work.  I think that this is especially due to the influence of Blumhouse, which has kept his vision in check, making him work within a smaller budget.  This has allowed Shyamalan to be creative and rely more heavily on practical effects and good old fashioned camera work.  Shyamalan has always been a fan of using color theory within the narrative of his films, and it’s used quite effectively here.  The color used from scene to scene helps to reveal different moods for the characters in each moment, and even communicates to us without words what each character represents.  McAvoy’s Crumb is often shown in the widest range of bright colors, showing us the chaotic jumble of personalities that inhabit his mind.  The scenes with Mr. Glass are especially effective, because of the way that Shyamalan zaps out almost all the light within the scene, playing much of it in shadow which emphasizes the dark soul that the character represents.  Even the pastels usually associated with Dr. Staple also tell their own story, and one that indicates a little bit about what she is all about.  At the same time, Shyamalan returns to the effective, stripped back shooting style that defined much of his earlier work.  Even when the movie kicks into action mode, he places the point of view in interesting and unexpected areas; such as shown through surveillance cameras, or as creatively as inside of a police car as it’s getting flipped on it’s side.  Within Glass, we see a director learning to trust his instincts as a visual story-teller once again and that helps to compensate for the shortcomings of the script.  Shyamalan may not have remastered all of his talents, but it is a treat to see him try to challenge himself again and try out some interesting ideas.

What also helps to make the movie work for the most part are the performances.  Even when his movies have suffered terrible writing, Shyamalan can somehow manage to get his actors to make that clunky dialogue work.  Thankfully, he got his two leads from Unbreakable back with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson.  Jackson’s return is especially worthwhile, because you can tell while watching this movie that he’s long wanted to return to this character and really explore that villainous side.  In Unbreakable, Jackson’s Elijah had to hide the person he truly was behind a facade, only to have his true evil nature revealed in the movie’s brilliant twist ending, and Sam Jackson sold that trickery so well.  In Glass, we get to see that villainous side unleashed and it’s a joy watching him take so much delight in being unapologetically evil.  Willis likewise returns to form, and balances the movie out with his more subdued and quiet performance.  Sadly, the movie doesn’t give him much to do with all it’s various plot threads, but Bruce makes the most out of what he’s given.  It’s James McAvoy who shines the most, however, in his returning role from the movie Split.  He is mesmerizing to watch in every scene as he effortlessly shifts from one persona to another, completely convincing you that he is multiple people all inhabiting one body.  He does it so brilliantly with simple changes in his facial expression or just the way he moves his body, and every moment he’s on screen you can’t take your eyes off him.  It’s also a physically demanding role for him too, and the commitment to get into shape for this role is pretty astounding.  Sarah Paulson especially deserves a lot of credit in this movie too, especially given that she’s given some of the most ridiculous dialogue in the entire movie and she delivers it with complete sincerity.  Shyamalan owes a lot to actors like her and the others for overcoming the limitations of his writing.  It’s also pleasing to see other returning cast members help to bring this trilogy full circle, especially Spencer Treat Clark who last played this role when he was still a child. Had this cast not put their best efforts into this movie, we would have has a much less effective movie overall, and given the problems already there, they are a life saver.

So, as a conclusion to this trilogy, Glass is far from the home run that we would have like to have had, and sadly is the least effective movie in the series overall.  But the fact that this trilogy even exists at all is a miracle in itself, and I’m glad that it ever made it as far as it has.  I always believed that Unbreakable was only ever going to be this one standalone thing, and I was fine with that.  But, the fact that in this super hero driven world that we live in now with regards to cinema that this long forgotten film was all of a sudden seen as a worthy inclusion to the genre as a whole, and worthy of a universe of it’s own, makes me incredibly happy.  Unbreakable is still a masterpiece of it’s genre and of film-making in general, and I love the fact that it was able to be rediscovered and appreciated once again.  Glass may not be a great movie, but it compliments Unbreakable in a way that still satisfies.  I still liked how they treated the characters of Bruce Willis’ unbreakable man and Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr. Glass.  And seeing them interact with James McAvoy’s incredible character from Split makes up the best parts of this movie.  Unfortunately, Shyamalan still needs to refine his writing skills, because they keep undermining the effectiveness of story.  Shyamalan has proven that he works best within boundaries, because it forces him to think more creatively, and these film in this trilogy prove that.  Unbreakable was a brilliant examination of what the extraordinary would look like within our ordinary world, and Split portrayed this crazy world effectively through one single character’s fractured mind.  Glass is the least restrained movie of the bunch and therefore the least effective, but it still works as a part of the whole.  For all we know, now that Shyamalan has closed the book on this trilogy he’ll be able to take more chances on things that appeal to his tastes, now that he has a renewed understanding of  where his strengths lie.  As of now, this Unbreakable trilogy is his crowning achievement as a story-teller, and despite the mixed results of Glass, it’s still a genuine treat that the legacy of M. Night Shyamalan’s best work is still going strong all these years later, and in a culture that has finally embraced the value of comic book legends that it was way ahead of the curve on.

Rating: 7/10