Tag Archives: Young Adult

Spare Parts

Alita: Battle Angel

by Hope Madden

Cyberpunk comes to the big screen in the form of a post-apocalyptic roller derby. I would not have guessed that’s how it would go.

Alita: Battle Angel is, among other things, director Robert Rodriguez’s best film in years. That isn’t saying a lot, but the truth is that the filmmaker does more with dystopian YA heroine tropes than most recent directors have.

In a terrestrial wasteland in the shadow of a sky city eternally out of reach, one kindly scientist (Christoph Waltz) scrounges a scrap heap looking for cyborg parts. He rebuilds something he finds there—something that reminds him of his own lost daughter. Though Alita (Rosa Salazar plus motion capture magic) has no memory of who or what she was, her instincts oscillate between earnest adolescent and battle-honed killer.

Based on a Manga series about a bounty hunter, Alita concerns itself more with the themes of today’s young adult franchises: empowering young women to be true to themselves, stand up to authority, own their own destiny, and only crush on boys who love you for who you truly are.

All fine lessons. A stocked supporting cast including two more Oscar winners (besides Waltz)—Mahershala Ali and Jennifer Connelly—elevate the sometimes threadbare dialog with sheer will and undeniable talent.

The film also showcases the latest cinematic tech wizardry at the disposal of co-scriptor James Cameron, wielded by Sin City’s visionary helmsman.

And it looks great. Better than the trailer makes you think it looks. The ruined city, the cyborg monstrosities, the action—all of it commands attention and refuses to be dismissed.

If nothing else, Alita absolutely marks a departure from the filmmaker’s traditional style. Indeed, it looks more like something Cameron would make: glossy and epic versus edgy and idiosyncratic.

There is nothing especially groundbreaking or memorable, however, about the film. There is nothing inferior about it, either. It pushes some boundaries in terms of content as well as movie experience and it entertains from start to finish. It’s Hunger Games with a more likable protagonist, Ready Player One with a plot.

It’s forgettable, cool looking and fun.

Uninspired Technophobia

Men, Women & Children

by Hope Madden

Nobody panic. Jason Reitman has just hit a slump, that’s all. Remain calm.

Sure, the writer/director made his feature film debut with Thank You for Smoking (thank you for making that movie!), and only went upward from there (Juno, Up in the Air, and the underappreciated masterpiece Young Adult). He was bound to waffle a little. Scorsese followed Taxi Driver with New York, New York, for Lord’s sake. It happens.

I’ll admit, I was hoping he was done with this misstepping with the laborious romantic bludgeoning Labor Day, but it appears he has one more overwrought drama in him in Men, Women & Children.

This is basically the same film Henry Alex Rubin made two years ago called Disconnect, which followed teens and parents making terrible decisions and living online instead of off.

MW&C is not the exact same movie, but close enough. Reitman, with co-writer Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary), reworks Chad Kultgen’s novel about teens and parents and their collective obsession with the wired world.

In many ways, the themes plumbed here are universal to the coming of age film, only in the world inside this film, every anxiety is heightened by the disconnect between reality and our virtual worlds. What the film explores in dozens of ways is our ever-growing loss of intimacy.

It’s not an uninteresting point, just a belabored one. Some individual storylines grow so hyperbolic that even this talented cast cannot rein it in. (We are expected to believe that online porn has so warped one 15-year-old boy that he can no longer get an erection naturally. Even with a flesh and blood girl present. Monkeys immediately fly from butts.)

Judy Greer gives a characteristically unusual and nuanced performance, as do many of her cast mates. Plenty of folks will bristle at the idea of Adam Sandler in an ensemble drama, but in fact, Sandler is only worth watching in independent ensemble dramas. (Please see Punch Drunk Love. Seriously, please see it.)

Greer and Sandler are not alone. The cast – teen and adult – is quite solid, but by the second trip to the hospital I had to just give up on the film. The youngsters are either sociopathic loners or suicidal, and if their parents aren’t cartoonishly unaware, they’re tracking them like criminals or pimping their underwear-clad asses online. Can things really be this dire?

Back to business now, Jason. Come on. Something good this time.

Verdict-2-5-Stars