Spectacle wins over plot and character in this sci-fi action blockbuster.
Alita: Battle Angel is a visually stunning, cinematic masterpiece, that falls a little short of its’ lofty goals in the story department and wonderfully succeeds in pushing the technological envelope in cinema, which its’ creators intended. The film is directed by Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, The Faculty) and produced/co-written by James Cameron (Avatar, The Terminator), and based off the popular manga Battle Angel Alita. Alita has been in development for years in the hands and mind of James Cameron, but when the Avatar sequels began to take too much of his time the reins were handed over to Robert Rodriguez to bring Alita to fruition, which was done with mixed results.
We are instantly transported to Iron City in the 26th century in a dilapidated, techno-infused society based on two things: bounty hunting and motorball, a sort of cross between inline skating and Death Race. In this world, there used to be fantastical sky cities until an event happened, known as The Fall, and now only one sky city remains: Zalem. This mystical city is what the inhabitants of Iron City, who are made up of cyborgs, known as hard bodies and humans, known as meat bags, attain to reach. The movie opens on Dr. Ido, played by Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained), wandering through a scrapyard, picking up spare robotic parts that are falling from Zalem, when he happens upon a humanoid robot. He takes it back to his lab and fixes it up to a body and BAM: Alita is born.
Alita, played by Rosa Salazar (Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials & Maze Runner: The Death Cure) is full of child-like innocence in a city full of killers, bounty hunters, and jackers, which are essentially street punks who violently saw off parts of cyborgs and sell them for scrap. Dr. Ido is her father figure and does his best to shelter her from the darker parts of Iron City, while Hugo, played by Keean Johnson (Nashville, Spooksville) tries to be her guide and pseudo-boyfriend. Vector, played by Mahershala Ali (True Detective, Green Book), is the ruler of the shadowy underground and the head of the Motorball competition, which can ultimately send the best Champion up to Zalem. Vector wants Alita dead for albeit mysterious reasons, with the help of his main thug Grewishka, played menacingly by Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen, Shutter Island), and Chiren, played by Jennifer Connelly (Requiem for a Dream, The Rocketeer), who has a connection to Dr. Ido.
While Alita is interesting enough and the CGI is spectacular, the film seems to fall short for a few reasons. The first issue is that it is setting itself up for a sequel or two, which takes away from the story that was being told in this film. During Alita, two things are happening, the main plot & the necessary world building and exposition to help launch sequels in the future. Living in a day and age where cinematic universes are all the rage, this was inevitable, given the rich history of the manga comics. The second issue is the uncanny valley effect. Basically, the uncanny valley is the emotion we feel when we see a CG or artificial being resemble a human being. The closer it gets the more interesting it becomes, until a certain point, where we feel a sense of revulsion. Alita is probably the closest I’ve seen to overcoming the uncanny valley, as her big manga eyes contain so much emotion, but it wasn’t the eyes that got to me, it was her smile and specifically her teeth. Once I noticed that, it was hard to forget about it, but, like I said, it is probably the best CGI I have ever seen, which was to be expected with both Peter Jackson’s WETA and James Cameron’s Light Storm combining to work on the CGI.
Robert Rodriguez’s direction was solid throughout the film and it moves along at a good pace. Tom Holkenborg, AKA, Junkie XL (Mad Max: Fury Road, Deadpool) composed the film, which adds a lot of tenderness to Alita and Hugo’s intimate scenes, and really is the heart of the film. Almost every scene in the movie was punctuated by Holkenberg’s score, which otherwise would not have held the same emotional value. All in all, I believe spectacle won out over the plot and characters in Alita: Battle Angel, but if you’re in the mood for a wicked cool action movie, head to the theater right now.