Captured during her sold-out world tour, BILLIE EILISH – HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR (LIVE IN 3D) brings an innovative new concert experience to the big screen from one of the most celebrated and successful artists of her generation. Presented in immersive 3D, the film is directed by Academy Award® winners James Cameron and Billie Eilish, in NZ theatres May 7, 2026.

Front Row to Everything: Inside the Experience

In a cinematic spectacle, music icon Billie Eilish and film legend James Cameron unite to bring Eilish’s 2025 tour to the big screen. The result is an experience so immersive and transformative that it sweeps audiences off their feet. Filmed in Manchester, the film weaves through an eight-hour day as Billie prepares for the show, connects with fans, and fine-tunes every detail before igniting the stage in a blaze of lights, sound, and pure energy. Once her voice fills the arena, the audience is instantly drawn in. Cameron directs with a light touch, letting Billie’s story shine through, blending electrifying concert moments with rapid-fire interviews and behind-the-scenes glimpses. The effect is a front-row seat to Billie’s world.

Pushing the Limits: Cameron’s 3D Mastery

For over three decades, Cameron has reimagined what 3D film can achieve, and here he brings that mastery to Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D). The result is a breathtakingly natural and immersive experience, as if you are standing right beside Billie on stage. The camera swoops and glides with mesmerising energy, granting viewers an intimacy with Billie that feels almost magical. Every beat of her music pulses through the screen, as the talents of these two visionaries amplify each other. Cameron’s cinematic brilliance casts Eilish in a new light, elevating the concert film to dazzling heights, while Billie’s artistry gives Cameron’s technology a fresh, electrifying canvas.

Heart on Sleeve: Billie and Her Audience

Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) shines a spotlight on Eilish as a live performer, capturing the raw openness she brings to the stage. She bursts forth on screen with energy, pouring her heart into every moment, leaving the audience exhilarated. The film also celebrates her deep bond with fans, sharing their heartfelt stories and the profound impact her music has on their lives. Tears flow as Billie performs, and she responds with genuine emotion, revealing just how much her fans mean to her.

Final Verdict: A Pulse-Pounding Pop Spectacle

Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) is a showstopping cinematic triumph, channelling the raw energy and originality of one of music’s most unstoppable voices. Audiences lucky enough to witness this electrifying spectacle will feel every pulse of Billie’s beat.

Image: Paramount Pictures

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While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

Sir Ridley Scott’s 1979 science-fiction horror Alien is an undoubted masterpiece of both genres and brought about a level of creativity and suspense that still terrifies audiences to this day. Now Hollywood’s go-to horror maestro Fede Álvarez has been given the torch and takes audiences into the abyss of fear with Alien: Romulus. Taking audiences to the far-flung galaxy of 2142 A.D. and bridging the narratives of Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens, Alien: Romulus is a serious, haunting and damn right scary piece of science-fiction horror that will keep you on edge from beginning to end. And thanks to the face-huggers and chestbursters, you’ll be hugging your chair with your knees up and your hands covering your eyes out of pure fright.

As a filmmaker, Álvarez makes Alien: Romulus a fresh watch right from the start. Taking audiences to the living hell of an off-world mining colony, Álvarez focuses on young miner Rain (Cailee Spane), who is effectively in indented servitude to the mighty and sinister Weyland-Yutani Corporation and finds a promising way to escape and embarks on her chance for a shot at freedom. But the path to heaven sees her fall into a brutal and dark fissure of pure hell as she comes face to face with space’s great monster. And the results lead to a pure heart-racing watch. Álvarez has an incredible understanding of the beats of suspense, and he keeps Alien: Romulus moving at an astounding pace, continuing to throw horrific traps and sudden challenges at his audience. He also finds a fresh way into the long-storied narrative elements of the Alien franchise, such as the ‘face-huggers’ and ‘chestbursters’, and through his unique creativity, he uses them to elevate the stress and panic of his audience.

Leading at the front of Alien: Romulus is rising star Cailee Spaney, and she again challenges herself with a very fresh character as young off-world miner Rain, who finds herself in a pit of pure terror. While drawing a similar resemblance to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, but also finding a fresh perspective into the picture, Rain is set up as Romulus’s ‘every woman’, a young woman with a pure dream, who unfortunately stumbles into a world of spacely horrors and must find a way through it all. Her performance is packed full of grit, and there’s an empathy and care present in her, which marks her out as the film’s core ‘angelic’ character. As the horrors mount up around her, the concept of pure survival closes in around her, but it’s her empathy for others that marks her out in this picture, and she’ll do whatever it takes to make sure her ‘brother’, a synthetic android Andy (David Jonsson), survives.

Delivering an utterly mesmerising performance in Alien: Romulus is David Jonsson, Rain’s synthetic android ‘brother’ Andy, and through the film’s twisting narrative, he goes on to deliver a complete 360 performance. From appearing child-like, docile and confused to being reprogrammed in such a way that he becomes a lethally efficient operative of corporate policy, there’s considerable shade and depth to Jonsson’s performance, and you completely buy into his performance as a non-human entity. Through the presence of Andy, Álvarez explores our very real fears of AI gone rogue, and he invokes a sense of puppetry and unpredictability at the behest of another entity, and this adds an extra layer of fear and betrayal into the picture that elevates the stakes.

The film’s atmosphere also lends heavily to the film, and through his experimentation and creativity, Álvarez and his team offer a new angle on which to view the Alien franchise. Where 1979’s Alien was a haunted house experience set in the bowels of a decaying, rust bucket spaceship, Alien: Romulus’s setting lends itself to like walking through a science lab gone meltdown, and you know from the outset that nothing is right inside the Romulus. There’s a sense of building dread and a situation where everything is going against our crew of scavengers, and you feel as if they have crossed a line and are rapidly being punished for it. In reflecting on Prometheus’ sense of grand hubris and how pride proceeds the fall, there’s a sense of almost ‘divine punishment’ present in Alien: Romulus, as this otherworldly beast feeds on the crew who disturbed it, and Álvarez elevates the horrors that envelope the screen.

Álvarez leans heavily into a sense of persistent and gnawing body horror with Alien: Romulus, and the detail of it all will scare the living hell out of you. As a reflection of our own fears generated from the likes of the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s a real focus on the horrors of the ‘parasite’, and Álvarez, along with Scott’s guidance, digs deep into ideas of birth and transformation in the most horrifying way possible. The symbolism, married with the practical effects of these ‘growing pains’, leaves the audience with a skin-crawling sense of dread and Alien: Romulus is a damn confronting watch.

The experience of Alien: Romulus keeps you on edge the whole way through, and from beginning to end, you never know when the tension will be loosened. When you think our characters may have finally found an exit to their nightmare, Álvarez turns up the volume, and the fear evolves into something worse. The film’s third act took me totally by surprise as Rain comes face-to-face with a new creature from the terror of the subconscious, and this final dash of horror will leave you in a fit of hyperventilating panic. It’s a final scene of pure bleak horror, where you won’t anticipate what’s coming, and it lands with an acidic bite that will send multiple shivers down your spine.

Alien: Romulus is one of the most terrifyingly thrilling watches you’ll see all year, and it will leave you with your pulse elevated, and searching for the light as you leave the theatre.

Image: 20th Century Studios

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From visionary filmmakers James Cameron (Avatar) and Robert Rodriguez (Sin City), comes Alita: Battle Angel, an epic adventure of hope and empowerment. When Alita (Rosa Salazar) awakens with no memory of who she is in a future world she does not recognise, she is taken in by Ido (Christoph Waltz), a compassionate doctor who realises that somewhere in this abandoned cyborg shell is the heart and soul of a young woman with an extraordinary past. As Alita learns to navigate her new life and the treacherous streets of Iron City, Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious history while her street-smart new friend Hugo (Keean Johnson) offers instead to help trigger her memories. But it is only when the deadly and corrupt forces that run the city come after Alita that she discovers a clue to her past – she has unique fighting abilities that those in power will stop at nothing to control. If she can stay out of their grasp, she could be the key to saving her friends, her family and the world she’s grown to love.

Good things often take time, and that could not be truer for Alita: Battle Angel which has long been acclaimed filmmaker James Cameron’s passion project. Together with director Robert Rodriquez, a man who shares Cameron’s passion for rebel filmmaking, these two men accomplish what can only be described as the next step in science-fiction cinema with a terrific level of immersive realism and cutting edge CGI.

Best described as a science-fiction fairytale, Alita: Battle Angel enchants audiences with its magical future world and pulls you deeper into the action and narrative of a young cyborg’s quest to discover who she really is. It’s easy to see why Cameron and Rodriguez were drawn to the subject matter of Alita: Battle Angel with its exploration of themes related to technology, female empowerment and class structure, plus there’s plenty of room for amazing action sequences. Alita: Battle Angel offered Cameron and Rodriguez a truly remarkable canvas to craft the ultimate science fiction experience and they sure did deliver with Alita: Battle Angel.

Alita: Battle Angel is Rodriguez’s biggest production to date and the rebel filmmaker brings his considerable visual skills to play here. As a director, his focus is on keeping the action moving and right off the bat he gets things in motion. When we first discover Alita she is a completely empty shell of a being and like us, she grows into the world around her. It’s a great narrative device to build exposition for an audience, while also allowing for a natural character arc of growth for Alita. While the film may be science-fiction in nature, Rodriguez gives it a certain structure and style reminiscent of classic fairy-tales and this allows him to explore Alita’s journey with more depth as she comes into her considerable powers.

There is no Alita without the presence of young lead Rosa Salazar and she gives an incredible heartfelt performance here. If I were to use a word to best describe Salazar’s performance then the word genuine comes to mind. The young actresses’ performance is incredibly naturalistic and we get to watch as she grows from a young girl to a woman, and comes into control of her considerable power which allows her to find her place in a strange new world. Salazar’s Alita reminds me somewhat of Alice as she wanders through this magical new technological Wonderland and the character gives her plenty of opportunities to show off her considerable theatrical range from innocent doe to full-on cybernetic warrior. What’s even more remarkable about Salazar’s performance is that she portrays the character completely through CGI and the performance capture and computer wizardry of the wizards at Weta Digital brings out her stunning performance up on screen.

Joining Alita in her quest of discovery is Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz who finds a change of pace here as the kindly Dr. Dyson Ido who brings Alita back to life and becomes her de-facto father in this strange new world. While Waltz may be the go-to guy for dangerous villains and eccentric misfits, I really enjoyed seeing him take on a completely different character which allowed him to show off his gentler side. As Dr. Ido you get a real sense that this is a character who cares deeply for those that he helps with his clinic and through the presence of Alita he is able to once again be a father. But while he might be a man who saves, Ido also gets his hands dirty as well and he introduces Alita to the Hunter Warrior lifestyle and he also gets his chance to get his fight on in the film’s dynamic action sequences.

Every hero needs a villain to test them and Alita finds hers in the charismatically dangerous Vector played by Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali and he really puts the young cyborg to the test. As Vector, the man behind the spectacular gladiatorial game of Motorsport he casts a sinister shadow over the citizens of Iron City as a Hades-like figure who is the king of the scraps and overseer of the haves and the have-nots. Ali is all class and style here and it’s a role that really allows him to stretch with his considerable theatrical range. With his devilish flair Vector makes for a threatening presence for Alita and he truly tests our young heroine in every way possible.

Along with our key cast, Rodriguez also packs the film out with great supporting players, and there are also plenty of fun cameos as well. On the live-action front, we see the appearance of the likes of Jennifer Connelly as the technically proficient surgeon and scientist Chiren, who is desperately searching for her way back to Zalem. Connelly gives the character of Chiren a real femme fatale flair that is coated with a dangerous glamour and a calculating mind, and she makes for a great foil for both Salazar and Waltz with her Machiavellian personality. Turning to the CGI front we get a host of dangerous cyborgs and rising British star Ed Skrein brings plenty of punk rock flair to his portrayal of pretty boy Hunter Warrior Zapan, who has a large chip on his shoulder and who takes an instant dislike to Alita which slowly builds up to an adversarial battle between the two of them. Also, keep your eyes peeled for a host of great cameos from Rodriguez regulars such as Michelle Rodriguez, Eiza González, Jeff Fahey and a whole host more, with plenty of surprises thrown in there as well.

Along with its strong narrative, Alita: Battle Angel is packed out with incredible action set pieces and Rodriguez really gets to flex his creativity here. As Alita finds her true power she unleashes an incredible physical force and all evil-doers should fear this warrior because this girl really kicks ass. As she battles an army of robots and cyborgs the action is realized in full 360 motion as she lets loose with a barrage of targeted punches and kicks that tears apart the motors and gears of her combatants, and in the immersive landscape of IMAX 3D you feel the rush of all of it.

But if I have to call out my favourite part of Alita: Battle Angel then it is most definitely the savage and ferocious sport of Motorball. A gladiatorial mashup of NASCAR, ice hockey and mixed martial arts that comes flying at you at over 300km/h, Motorball makes for one hell of a rush! Sliding on her skates and jumping into the thrills, Alita brings a tremendous grace to this brutal sport and when she learns that the game is rigged, well, let’s just say that it’s game on! This robotic smash and bash rollercoaster will have you hanging on for dear life and it’s one hell of a visual thrill.

Alita: Battle Angel is a tremendously beautiful piece of science fiction cinema and offers up a bold new world and amazing heroine for cinemagoers. It’s a rush that will set your senses on fire from beginning to end and make sure you see it in glorious IMAX 3D…because this is one experience you don’t want to miss out on.

Image: 20th Century Fox

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