Alita: Battle Angel (2019) | Film Review

The first time director Robert Rodriguez’s camera fixates on the delicate features of Alita’s face, something feels off. In an unnamed junkyard located within Iron City circa 2563, Dr. Dyson Ido holds Alita’s severed cyborg head – and life – in his hands. He gazes upon her humanistic skin with gigantic oversized eyes and determines she is ultimately worth saving. It could be his desperate need to remember his deceased daughter in the spiritual sense, possibly his need to care for others regardless of creed, or it could simply be that he understands the powerful agent of change Alita could be. Whatever it is, she always feels…off.

Back in his lab, Ido (Christoph Waltz, thick with humanity and grace) reconstructs Alita’s body with cyborg parts. Once alive and recalibrated, Alita (Rosa Salazar) begins her quest to understand her origins and connection to Zalem, a city-sized ship that towers over Iron City, the last remnant of a brutal global war known only as “The Fall”. She also longs to win the affections of Hugo (Keean Johnson), a local hoodlum with a heart who introduces Alita to the deadly sport of Motorball (essentially cyborgs on roller blades beat the synthetic oil out of each other as they chase a Quidditch ball around an arena, battle-royale style).

Of course, Alita is someone special. An ages-old weapon of destruction and the only known threat to Nova, the leader of Zalem who can subconsciously control his surrogates, Alita is immediately deemed worthy of extermination by those under Nova’s employment. Vector (Mahershala Ali) is the steely-eyed leader of the cause, while Chiren (Jennifer Connelly) repairs their rogue gallery of assassins. Oh, and she’s also Ido’s ex-wife.

In case you missed it, Alita: Battle Angel – based on Yukito Kishiro’s manga series, Gunnm – has no shortage of story to tell, and that isn’t even all of it. Alita also seeks to become a Hunter-Warrior, a dastardly collection of bounty hunters who rarely bring their collections in alive. Minor subplots become entire storylines and by the end of the relatively simple 2 hour runtime, it becomes painfully obvious this was always intended to create a new series of films.

Let’s cut to it: Much has been made about Alita’s budget, about Robert Rodriguez’s past successes and struggles, and especially about the involvement of master-blockbuster auteur James Cameron. All I have to say is this: It doesn’t matter how much was spent or who was involved, all we should care about is are we not entertained? And that answer is a pretty resounding “yes”.

Are there flaws in Alita: Battle Angel? God yes. James Cameron is a gifted storyteller, there is no doubt. Yet the script from Cameron, Rodriguez, and Laeta Kalogridis is akin to that stocking given to your newborn baby on their very first Christmas: there’s just too much “stuff” jammed in there that would be better suited for when they’re older and able to stand on their own. An incredibly layered story is delivered, though with far too many side-characters and arcs to truly stay focused on a singular path. It ultimately works, but mostly due to the captivating cinematics constantly diverting our attention. Which is honestly the surprising part.

Based on his recent works, if you had told me I would walk out of Alita being more impressed with Robert Rodriguez than James Cameron, I might have slapped you with a bionic arm until you came to your senses. Yet, the truth is in the pudding. And this visual hodge-podge of CGI and motion-capture is absolutely delicious.

Rodriguez’s camera is constantly moving, gliding along with the motion, diving through the action, forever keeping us aware of events transpiring and locations changing without forcing us to succumb to exhaustion as we try to keep up. Whether it’s a thrilling bar fight worthy of Patrick Swayze or a bombastic Motorball match that extends far into Iron City itself, Alita is visually stunning throughout. And the 3D showcases everything that the overused technology can exceed at, immersing the audience in a fully-realized world of eye-popping vistas and architecture. Alita is a dazzling, visual massage of the senses.

And then there’s Alita herself. As I said at the top, from the first moment we catch a glimpse of this centuries-old teenager, she stands out. Rosa Salazar meshes with CGI to create this titular cyborg with enormously rounded eyes, and she always stands out – just a hair – as not being quite real. The humanity and drive is there in the performance, the fluidity is prominent in the movements, yet there is always something a tiny bit OFF about Alita.

In the trailers, this always bothered me. The enormity of those eyes made it seem impossible to forget the CGI origins of Alita. Yet, as I watched the completed version of the film, it actually made the character click in ways I hadn’t expected. In a world where her kind has been discarded and abandoned, forgotten through time, Alita herself does not belong. Each and every room she enters, she is unwanted, a castaway of sorts. Whether intentional or a blissful byproduct, her uniqueness and inability to blend into the background sold me on both the character and her journey. And by the film’s concluding moments, I was completely invested in Alita, desperately needing to witness her future exploits.

Ultimately, isn’t that what entertainment is all about?