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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Thursday 14 February 2019
'Alita: Battle Angel' is big eyes and big effects

By MARK KENNEDY who has some moral issues
Associated Press to work out since he's ro-
Alita is just like a typical mancing a cyborg by day
teenage girl. She loves and slicing them apart at
chocolate, breaks curfew night.
and crushes on a bad boy There are several subplots
with floppy hair, a leather involving cyberpunk boun-
jacket and a motorcycle. ty hunters, a ruling elite
But Alita isn't typical in other that lives in the sky and
ways. For one, she can slice the town's favorite sport —
apart a single falling tear Motorball, a combination
with her ferocious battle meth-fueled roller derby
sword. and Death Race. The film
Those are the two sides is rated PG-13 but there's
brought up by "Alita: Battle quite a bit of cyber-gore
Angel ," our film entry into here, including gouging
the thrilling manga world out eyeballs (more than
of artist Yukito Kishiro and once) and slicing metal folk
imagined for the screen in half or amputating them.
by producer James Cam- If these were human, we'd
eron and director Robert This image released by Twentieth Century Fox shows the character Alita, voiced by Rosa Salazar, be moving toward an R for
Rodriguez. The film crams in a scene from "Alita: Battle Angel." sure.
in so many plot lines that Associated Press The filmmakers are not
it risks being overstuffed afraid of making our hero-
but somehow stays true to She's been given huge CG by a compassionate cy- the sky here, but the popu- ine absolutely lethal and
its mesmerizing vision and eyes but they're not as dis- ber-physician played by lation still relies on cheap yet swooningly immature
emerges as a sci-fi success, tracting as you may fear. Christoph Waltz. The year plastic umbrellas.) (she actually digs into her
if not a triumph. Somehow, Salazar still con- is 2563 and we are in the Alita's human core is given chest and offers her own ar-
Alita is both machine and veys deep emotion without crowded, chaotic streets a body and she awakens tificial beating heart to her
human and the big-bud- a crucial acting tool. The of Iron City, a melting pot but has no memory of what boyfriend, later laughingly
get screen adaptation is film also has appearances of survivors from a post- came before. She must find admitting that gesture was
both live action and com- by Jennifer Connelly, who apocalyptic war. Cyborgs out who she is and what her "intense.") She can give a
puter generated, each is chilly and mysterious, and are everywhere and get- destiny is. "Whose rules do I beat-down to a roomful of
element present in Alita Mahershala Ali, who is chilly ting fresh parts seems to live by?" she asks. Mean- hardened killers but still curl
herself, played with equal and dangerous. fuel the economy. (Curi- while, she falls for a hu- up on the couch and put
parts tenderness and fe- The film begins with Alita's ously, plastic umbrellas are man cyborg jacker (bland her head on her adoptive
rocity by Rosa Salazar. torso found in a junk heap still in use. Cities can float in but hunky Keean Johnson) dad's chest. q

Cass McCombs evokes the West on

'Tip of the Sphere'

his career, with an atmo-
spheric, sweetly meander-
ing record made in 10 days
in Brooklyn but with plenty
of sonic and thematic ref-
erences to his native West.
"Tip of the Sphere" tapers
down some of the frills of its
predecessor, achieving a
more uniform overall sound
while still finding space
for some catchy arrange-
ments and lyrics alternating
between mythical, realistic
and enigmatic.
A hypnotic, insistent gui-
tar arpeggio on the intro-
ductory "I Followed the
River South to What," as
well as the vaguely Jack-
This cover image released by ANTI- shows "Tip of the Sphere," a son Browne-like tone of
release by Cass McCombs. McCombs vocals, not to
Associated Press mention the turbulent and
lengthy guitar solo, evoke
By PABLO GORONDI Cass McCombs follows up the California spirit, while
Associated Press 2016's "Mangy Love," the "The Great Pixley Train Rob-
Cass McCombs, "Tip of the most all-around successful bery" is a dynamic tune
Sphere" (ANTI-) and profile-lifting album of based on a real 1889 heist.