Survival is a CHOICE! (Escape Room 2019)

225.

Escape Room

 

 

 

6/10

 

Being a lover of going to an escape room or two and horror being a favourite genre of mine, it's interesting to find out what happens when the two cross over. This has the makings of a random horror that just acts as a filler, with a cast that I've never seen before and probably never will again and a storyline that I can imagine won't be going up for an Oscar, this movie will be one of those filler horror's that will be as entertained as maybe having the humour to carry it through. Will this leave me needing an escape plan half way through?
The storyline only needs a quick run through as we are introduced to some of the characters, each one their own person as we have a businessman, a trouble-making teen, a geeky, lonely teen girl and so on. Each one shows their flaws in their lives before being sent a mysterious box.

 On managing to open the puzzle book, they find it holds an invitation to a new kind of escape room with big prizes. On entering the first room, we are introduced to a couple of more players until they realise they are actually already in the game. It's a massive oven which is slowly cooking them alive. This is not an escape room that I'm used to.

The second room I even get the answer to the lock and as for the third, it claims the first victim. Now each escape room as a hidden meaning to them. It shows each participant's darker past, whether they were at fault for someone dying, were actually a killer or just simply got lucky enough to remain alive in a situation that no-one should have survived! Whoever created this escape rooms means for the players to try their luck once again. Obviously, some aren't making it but now our geeky girl has worked out that she can beat this game.

She starts smashing the cameras in a room that is now meant to poison the remaining four players, as one dies, two others move onto the next room and leave the girl behind. They are now head to head in a trippy room and they've been dosed up with some drugs. There is only one needle available to bring themselves back to reality and a fight to the death ensues as our teenage grumpy guy wins, leading into the final room. The room's walls as closing in and in the final moments, he absolutely flukes an escape. The girl on the other hand as faked passing out so that the runners of the game head in, which she attacks and heads out into the back area. She comes across a surveillance room that shows the true extent of what is going on. There is a game going on for the rich who are betting on who would remain alive. They believe that she is dead and now she is big-time under the radar. Her and the remaining guy are seen meeting up at the end of the movie, a short time in the future. She wants to take the fight to the man, finding out their headquarters and plan for the next game. The transformation of her character is astounding. It didn't take long to convince the fella and the audience is left wondering if there is enough meat left on the bone for some sort of sequel.
The film reminded me a lot of the Saw franchise. With the number of gruesome antics and deaths, past being brought up about the players and activities that need to be done to move on to the next task, it really did feel like another turn they made. This took a bit of the shine away from it as although getting the fad of escape rooms into the genre, it still felt like it's been done before, even a little recycled. The major talking point would definitely the transformation of the characters. Now that would mean them coming of age or actually going the other way. We have confident team players turning into selfish arseholes who do anything to survive. We have youngsters who are either innocent until death or turning from cowardly nervous experimenters into their own leader, fighting for survival and for the happy ending. The movie was enjoyable as a one time watch, even maybe twice so that you can take in anything that you may have missed the first time but it's far from going to go down as a classic. Does add a touch of escapism though. 

I do not standby in the presence of evil! (Alita: Battle Angel 2019)

 

 

 

224.

Alita: Battle Angel

 

 

 

7.5/10

 

 I decided to experience this movie in a new way. I was invited to watch the premiere at a nearby Odeon, which included watching the stars arrive live on a blue carpet, representing Odeon, interviews with the stars and even a pre-filmed questions and answers segment. All in all, I think I was at the cinema for around 4 hours. It was a pretty decent experience to gear the audience up for this. This film has been a long time coming and to put that into perspective, James Cameron had to choose between making this and turning his attention to Avatar. We know the choice he then made, moving this idea onto Robert Rodriguez, taking more of a backseat. This would be the last movie before 20th Century Fox merged with the Powerhouse of Disney. We are about to fitness a few familiar faces of Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, hot property Mahershala Ali and the lead role of Alita played by Rosa Salazar. Let's dip in and see if this was worth the wait from is transformation over from the Manga series.
The Earth is 300 years in the future and after a massive interplanetary way, the world is a complete shit hole. Dr. Dyson Ido, played by Waltz, is going through a scrap yard and after finding a broken down cyborg with an intact human brain, he takes it home, gives it a new body and names it Alita. Growing up, she is treated as a daughter, befriends a fella called Hugo, who isn't far from the love interest in this story and all of this is new as Alita has no memory of her past life.

 

 

 This is always going to lead somewhere deeper and darker because they made the point of the forgotten memory really early on. In the meantime, Hugo's way of taking Alita's mind off things is to introduce her to Motorball, which is a battle royal tournament, played up in the wealthy sky city of Zalem. Thing is Hugo a little bit of a prick. He steals parts from cyborgs for the tournament owner named Vector, played by Ali.
Now one night, Alita becomes a little too curious and follows Ido as he creeps about, she thinks he is the one stealing cyborg parts. Once she sees he is being attacked, she instinctively fights back to protect him, kicked ass and making one retreat underground. Ido reveals himself to be a 'Hunter-Warrior'. Altia believes that if she carries on fighting, it may help her remember who is actually is. The cyborg that retreated heads off to Vector's place to be fixed by Dr. Chiren, the estranged wife of Ido. Keeping up? Alita can't help but wander off and in a crashed ship, finds a crazy cool cyborg body that she wants to use. Ido recognizes this as a berserker body, an army trooper from Mars during the great war. Just as a standard spoilt brat, Alita storms off and takes matters into her own hands. She signs up to be a Hunter-Warrior, then moves onto recruit people in a seedy bar to attack the Cyborg from earlier. Zapan, another bounty hunter, provokes Alita and she kicks the shit out of him. Before she knows it, the cyborg she's been looking to fight shows up, upgraded and ready for battle. She ends up being cut into pieces but not before putting up a fight and even with just a torso, one arm and a plucky attitude, she still manages to get a decent blow to the guys head.

 

 

 With an 'F Bomb' and stab to the eye, she is quickly helped by Ido and Hugo, along with a fellow hunter she is carried out, with Ido apologising for putting her into the situation and finally putting her body into the berserker armour.
Having now fallen in love with Hugo, Alita wants to earn the money to be able to send him up to Zalem. She has a trial in Motorball, hoping for the prize money but things don't go to plan. With Hugo having seconds thoughts about his secret job, he decides to quit but Zapan is back, killing the cyborg stealers and the cyborg, framing Hugo along the way. Now Zapan is being sent by a higher power than Vector. Someone called Nova fleets in and out of peoples bodies. He seems a very high society figure from Zalem, but we are yet to meet them in person. With Hugo begging Alita for help, she leaves mid-battle and goes to save him from Zapan. This evil cyborg mortally wounds the boy but Dr. Chiren appears from nowhere and offers to attach Hugo's head to Alita's life support. Zapan is watching on a sees through the trick and still attempts to stop Alita. He wants the bounty that has been placed on Hugo but he guards stop him, leading to Alita stealing his blade that she has long wanted and slicing off half of his face.

 

Hugo was always promised by Vector that he would get him up to Zalem. Ido, who has now attached Hugo to a cyborg body, reveals that this was always a lie. Most of the background and stories in this move tends to be a lie. The only way to get up to Zalem is too be a Motorball champion. On finding this out, Alita loses her shit once again and heads to the factory owned by Vector to confront his lies. By this time, Chiren is in a few cases as she has been harvested for her organs. Vector summons that everlasting Cyborg from the beginning named Grewishka but Alita's new body now makes easy work of him. She forces Nova to come to her through Vector and after this superior figure threatens her family and friends, she fatally stabs Vector.
Returning home, Hugo has left to climb one of the cargo tubes to Zalem and after a quick chat, Alita convinces him to come back. This doesn't exactly go to plan though. Defense rings slice the boy in half. She tries to grab him as he falls but his arm starts to break off and after a thank you, he slips below the clouds.
The movie ends after moving months into the future. Alita is now the star of Motorball, looking to make her way up to Zalem the only way she knows how. She wins the latest race, pointing her sword towards Zalem. Above, we finally get a glimpse of the onlooking Nova and with a smirk on his face, we see it's, surely it's not, yep that's Edward fucking Norton. Where'd he come from?!

 

 

This movie had many good points but it didn't go without some bad features too. From the first trailer, the graphics and idea of this movie had drawn me in. It looked beautiful and sometimes this means that the rest of the movie suffers if all of the eggs are chucked into one basket. It lived up to all expectations and watching the movie in 3D only enhanced this. The story itself was intriguing and stayed that way until the end. There were a couple of twists and turns and even if you could guess that characters were going to switch sides for one reason or another, it was still cool when this came to fruition. A major downfall was that it seemed to be too much of a story. There was a lot of fit into two hours and this felt rushed at times, with too many side stories taking place. If you missed one thing by taking a toilet break, you may have been buggered to catch up for the next scene. Finally the acting, we know Waltz is going to be cracking and this was no different. Playing the protective father role before knowing this was a lost girl who needed answers. Moving onto Salazar, mind the pun but the acting was a little robotic. Now I don't know if this was intentional and I'd like to think it was, otherwise it was a little awkward. The movie ends with the potential of a sequel but with the underwhelming success of the first installment, unfortunately, I don't know if it will happen. The movie made a decent wedge of cash but will the outcry be there from the fans?