One of these days there will be a futuristic science fiction movie that is written, produced and released that does not paint such a dire picture of the future of the world, where there has been some sort of a nuclear war, and people live among pieces of broken machines and robots. This story takes place in the year 2562 and has one of the most depressing world environments I have ever seen in any movie.

The new movie “Alita: Battle Angel” has extremely impressive special effects that include some of the same technology that has existed since Avatar, released in 2007. Unfortunately and once again, special effects were considered more important than a great story. The main character in this movie, Alita is an animated robot created using a technology where the actor is fitted with motion detector devices and filmed in front of a green screen. Alita’s eyes are very big, like the characters in Avatar, and her big eyes make her a very likable character. She is found by a scientist played by actor Christoph Waltz and put back together and during the first third of this movie, it is found that she has special combat skills and is a robot over 300 years old. Even though she is a robot, she can love with a human and even eat food, something I have never seen a Robot do in any movie. Why would any Robot ever need to eat human food?

The problems with this movie are that its too long, well over 2 hours and the story is all over the place, especially at the end with a convoluted plot that was never explained well enough and even includes a Rollerball type of game where people can elevate to a higher world if they win. The fight scenes are many and probably too intense for any child under 15 years old and there are also scenes of bounty hunters who are hired to kill other robots and humans. The reasons for this part of the story, were another part that was never made clear enough. Alita: Battle Angel is another movie that has a comic book counterpart that the audience would have to read before they would be able to understand the entire story. This is all about bad screenwriting and it should not be necessary to know about any story before hand when you see a new movie. Its all about explaining what is going on in a concise easy to understand way and this movie skips over too many important things to make this story more understandable to the majority of the audience.

This movie also starts Jennifer Connely and Mahershala Ali who seem to have been added to this cast, only to attract more box office and other than the money, I wonder why either one of them decided to do this movie. Due to the technology and history with Avatar, James Cameron is also involved with this movie as a co-screenwriter. Cameron is both a great director and screenwriter, but for this script it seems he was too distracted with other projects to give his full attention to this one.

The Rotten Tomatoes review is only about 59% and I would have given this movie only about a 50% and due to all the problems, I cannot recommend it.

There have been way too movies like “Isn’t It Romantic” starring Rebel Wilson made over the years where someone gets hit on the head and then falls into a completely different world either because they believe they are different like last years “I Feel Pretty” with Amy Schumer or because they are in a dream world because they are in a coma like this story. Some of the messages of Isn’t It Romantic are very good, including the belief that so many Romantic Comedies give the world a false example of what relationships really are. A person has to love themself first before they can love someone else, very true. However, the story was not strong enough despite these messages to recommend and ironically became a movie that the main character hates – a bad romantic comedy.

It seemed like the screenplay for this movie was green-lighted entirely because of the log-line: “A woman who hates romantic comedies hits her head and winds up in a world of romantic comedies”. I am amazed that this story was considered good enough to provide millions in funding and make a movie from it. There are definitely way better ideas than this one and all aspiring screenwriters wonder why some movies are made and others are not.

You have to admire actress Rebel Wilson for being a successful and bankable in Hollywood as one of the very few overweight actors to not only star in but now produce their own movies. Isn’t it Romantic reunites actor Adam Devine as Rebel Wilson’s love interest with almost the same relationship they had in the first 2 Pitch Perfect films. These two seem completely incompatible physically and perhaps that is part of the joke here, but there is nothing I found funny in this movie. Actors Liam Hemsworth and Priyanka Chopra are also in this movie for reasons that have nothing to do with the story, and everything to do with increasing the box office.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is an anemic 65% and I am more in the 50% range, believing that this movie should be missed.

To take the horrors of Word War I from film that is over 100 years old and then fix the wear and tear, age, speed and color – and then make a 2 hour documentary called “They Shall Not Grow Old” is an incredible scientific and movie making achievement. Most people would probably think that film this old, regardless of how many times it has been copied would not even exist, much less to be able to correct the many problems to make a new documentary about World War I.

There are many circumstances out of our control in life that can make you a successful human being and just as many that can make you a failure or a young person who horribly dies in war. Being a young man born in the early 1890’s or the early 1920’s virtually guaranteed that your life would probably include being drafted into 2 of the most horrible wars in human history and not only dying young, but horribly. Even if you survived, the odds were even higher that you would be badly wounded or have psychological scars that will never heal for the rest of your life.

Director Peter Jackson spent years creating a 2 hour documentary and story about the horrendous hardship’s of World War I that was fought during 1914-1918. The restored film footage covered the constant shelling from both the British and the Germans, the commonplace reality of death and dismemberment, the days and weeks of sitting around waiting for another battle to start, lack of food and suffering, the use of chemical weapons, the disgusting bathroom realities and even some pictures of trench foot, where the only solution was amputation. There is no way any human being can tell someone outside of a war like this what it was like, even with a high quality produced documentary like this one. Surprisingly, after the war the returning veterans were not treated well, and most could not find any work, even encountering indifference to what they have been through. This documentary also has narration throughout from many of the soldiers who lived through this horrible war, and if there is one flaw in this movie it is that many of the accents are so thick that very often you cannot understand what they are saying.

At the beginning of this documentary, Peter Jackson tells the audience that at the end of the credits he will address the audience after the closing credits to summarize much of the film restoration science was accomplished. Unfortunately the ending credits were way too long and annoying to sit through to wait for Peter Jackson. A better idea would have been to show Peter Jackson’s technical explanation right after the movie and then end the movie with the credits.

For anyone interested in world history and the history of World War I, this is a must see documentary, but prepare yourself for some very disturbing pictures and video. All wars are horrendous and should never exist in life but they will probably always exist. Humanity, even 100 years ago, is extremely accomplished at the cruel art of killing people.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for They Shall Not Grow Old are 99% and I agree with this rating and highly recommend this very impressive documentary.