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| Rosa Salazar as Alita |
For years, James Cameron had wanted to make a movie based on Yukito Kishiro's manga series about a young female cyborg. Due to reasons ranging from not having the technology at the time and being busy with
Avatar and its long-delayed sequels, Robert Rodriguez stepped in as director with Cameron serving as both producer and screenwriter as life is finally given to this long-awaited project.
Set in the year 2563, Alita (Rosa Salazar) is found as scrap metal by Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) who puts her back together and raises her like a daughter. An amnesiac Alita learns about Earth and how a catastrophic event known as "The Fall" left the planet as a habitat of junkyard cities while the rich prosper in a floating utopian city called Zalem. She falls for Hugo (Keean Johnson), an earthling who dreams of going to Zalem and introduces her to the deadly sport of Motorball where androids race to the death. Alita slowly begins to regain most of her memory including an impressive set of fighting skills that gets the attention of Vector (Mahershala Ali) who runs the Motorball games, Chiren (Jennifer Connolly) Dr. Ido's ex-wife who works for Vector and Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley) a cyborg assassin with his own agenda.
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| Signature Cameron shot of looking at a view that takes your breathe away. |
Rodriguez and Cameron clearly care for the source material and spared no expense in bringing Alita's cyperpunk world to life. With Cameron on-board you know the movie will visually look grand and monumental. The action is no exception especially with Rodriguez involved you can expect the carnage meter to go up with robots stabbed, slashed and decapitated. Thank goodness the limbs are metallic and bleed blue slime in order to get that PG-13 rating.
If only they applied that with Alita's eyes who may look nice on paper and animation but uncanny in live-action. You could make the argument that being a robot she can have certain features that make her stand-out from humans and other robots but if that's the case why did none of the other robots freak me out? Her tiny stature is enough for her to be unique. Who would suspect her of being a powerful cyborg without the need of fancy weaponry, or lethal designs? She can take out an opponent with her bare hands.
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| Almost forgot this movie had villains. |
Like any Rodriguez movie whether it be aimed for kids (
Spy Kids and
The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl), or adults (
Machete, Desperado, Sin City) you get no shortage of entertainment. The same goes with Cameron as seen with the first two
Terminator movies and
The Abyss. Unfortunately,
Alita echoes Cameron's later work of
Titanic and
Avatar; strong visuals but weak story. In trying to cram the plotline of four manga books, the movie spends way too much time on its mythology and setting-up for a sequel that the story is rendered inadequate. Both the narrative and character development are hastily rushed with Dr. Ido's care for Alita being the only bond that felt genuine.
The overall presentation feel like random scenes taken from other movies and spliced together.
- Elysium: A floating city in the sky that is a utopia for the wealthy.
- Tomorrowland: Never seeing this "wondrous" place.
- The Hunger Games: Boy and girl fall in love amidst a dangerous game that promises riches and glory for the winner.
- The Bourne Identity: Lead character has no memory of who there are except that they kick butt and pack a punch.
- Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over: CGI dominating the whole picture with thrilling race scene.
- Titanic: You'll know it when you see it.
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| Demetra 2.0 |
Learn from
Mission Impossible and Sam Raimi's
Spider-Man on having a movie stand on it's own. You never know if a sequel will be green-lit, otherwise you'll end up like
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and
Allegiant. Alita: Battle Angel is nowhere near bad as say
Dragonball Evolution but like its artificial character, it could use a little more tinkering before letting her out.
Final Verdict: C-
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