ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL:
STUNNING SCI-FI SPECTACLE IS FLAWED BUT FUN!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: ** 1/2 out of 4
Revisited Score: *** out of 4
20TH CENTURY FOX
Rosa Salazar in Alita: Battle Angel
The cyberpunk world of Yukito Kishiro’s manga series, Gunnm a.k.a. Battle Angel Alita comes to the life in the new sci-fi action film, Alita: Battle Angel. The film is produced by James Cameron (Terminator 1 and 2, Titanic, Avatar) and directed by Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi/Mexico trilogy, The Faculty, Sin City 1 and 2) and has been in development hell since the early 2000s.
Much like Cameron’s own, Avatar it took several years to finally get this project off the ground and was originally scheduled to be his next project after the TV series, Dark Angel which was heavily influenced by the Battle Angel manga. However, it never came into fruition at the time of development as Cameron kept delaying the film to work on the IMAX documentary, Aliens of the Deep and Avatar to the point where Rodriguez was hired to direct while Cameron took credit as a producer alongside frequent collaborator, Jon Landau.
After years of development and finalizing, Alita: Battle Angel made it to the screen and that’s where I come in. I have never read any of the Alita manga, so I have practically zero knowledge of the source material, but I came into the movie as an enthusiast of both Rodriguez and Cameron’s work.
For a collaboration by two visionary masters I was…entertained, the visuals are gorgeous and despite an overabundance of CGI the action sequences are thrilling, but in terms of storytelling I was expecting more out of a partnership between Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron. It’s definitely one of the better manga adaptations but not much higher than the live-action version of Ghost in the Shell.
Set in the 26th Century after a catastrophic war known as The Fall left the Earth devastated, a cyborg scientist named Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz-Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, Spectre) discovers a disembodied female cyborg with a fully intact human brain while scouting the junkyard metropolis of Iron City. He rebuilds the cyborg who does not have any recollections of her past and given the name “Alita” (Rosa Salazar-Night Owls, Maze Runner 2 and 3, Bird Box) after Ido’s deceased daughter, becoming a father figure to Alita.
As Alita learns about her new life, Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious history while she befriends a street-smart teenage boy named Hugo (Newcomer, Keean Johnson) who offers to help trigger her memories. However, when the corrupt forces that run the city learn about Alita’s existence and try to hunt her down, glimmers of her past life start coming back as she must step up from a lost android in a strange new world to a hero.
The film also stars Jennifer Connelly (Labyrinth, A Beautiful Mind, Only the Brave) as Chiren, Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Green Book, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as Vector, Ed Skrein (Game of Thrones, The Transporter: Refueled, Deadpool) as Zapan, Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children, Watchmen, The Tick (2016 series)) as Grewishka, Lana Condor (X-Men: Apocalypse, Patriots Day, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before) as Koyomi, Jorge Lendeborg Jr. (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Love, Simon, Bumblebee) as Tanji, Michelle Rodriguez (Fast & Furious franchise, Avatar, Machete 1 and 2) as Gelda, Elza González (From Dusk till Dawn: The Series, Baby Driver, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw) as Nyssiana, Idara Victor (The Choir, Rizzoli & Isles, Turn: Washington’s Spies) as Nurse Gerhad, Marko Zaror (Machete Kills, From Dusk till Dawn: The Series, Marvel’s The Defenders) as Ajakutty, Jeff Fahey (Lost,The Marshal, Grindhouse) as McTeague, Rick Yune (The Fast and the Furious, Die Another Day, Marco Polo) as Master Clive Lee, and Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers, Sleepy Hollow (1999), The Pact) as Amok.
Overall, Alita: Battle Angel is flashy popcorn entertainment that’ll most likely satisfy those looking for some cheap special-effects driven thrills. However, if you’re looking for a cyberpunk sci-fi film like Blade Runner or The Matrix with a lot of twists and turns that will change the way you look at the genre, you’ll probably be disappointed.
There really isn’t anything that original in this film outside of maybe the design of Alita but that’s mostly because she looks like an albino Na’vi mixed with the main character from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, nightmare-fueled at first but you get over her cartoonishly large eyes as the film goes on. Other than that, it’s every other cyberpunk or artificial intelligence movie trope, futuristic city reminiscent of Blade Runner: Check, lost android with a literally rusty history searching for his/her identity: Check, themes of segregation between the privileged in an otherworldly utopia in the clouds and everyone else stuck in the slums of Earth: Check.
You’d think with Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron helming this film they’d be able to create a completely original world that hasn’t been brought to the screen before. The streets of Iron City look like something Neill Blomkamp put together, the mechs patrolling the streets are reminiscent of the ED-209 from RoboCop, and while some of the designs of the cyborgs are imaginative and crazy, others just look like the same-old robots we’ve seen in a bajillion other movies.
It doesn’t help that the screenplay is 100% confident that it will become a franchise when the movie we’re already watching isn’t all that great to begin with. Yep, it ends on a cliffhanger to set up an Alita sequel which is something that rubs me the wrong way with a lot of blockbusters these days, if you’re not going to throw your all into the first movie, what’s the point in making a sequel? Tie up the loose ends and let it be self-contained and if it’s successful enough and more ideas come, maybe then do a follow-up.
With all that said, there are some positives to make, the visuals are appealing, and the action sequences are a lot of fun with the Motorball tournament in which Alita faces off against several other tricked-out cyborgs being the highlight of the film. Even with all the style, there is still something wholesome in the movie, specifically Rosa Salazar’s performance as Alita, she’s the heart and soul of this movie and despite her Powerpuff Girl-sized eyes I grew attached to her character.
The scenes showing Alita’s curiosity and understanding of the world is strangely kind of adorable and she has strong chemistry with both Christoph Waltz and Keean Johnson. Of course, she gets plenty of screen-time kicking robotic ass and ironically acting more human than most of the actual humans in this movie.
Alita: Battle Angel is a perfectly watchable sci-fi action flick that may be able to satisfy your blockbuster needs until Captain Marvel comes around next month. However, if you’re looking for something groundbreaking under the James Cameron name, I’d suggest continuing to wait for his Avatar sequels that we may or may not get.
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