A Reel Review - ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL

Visionary director James Cameron, the man who has brought us mega-hits such as ALIENS, TERMINATOR, TITANIC, and AVATAR, has long labored to bring ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL, the popular Japanese manga comic to the big screen. Technically he still hasn’t, as Cameron steps back into the writing and producing role and passes the directing torch to Robert Rodriguez (SIN CITY). Fans of the comic have been waiting for this film for 20 years, with hopes that it will be worth it. 

In the year 2563, long after a devastating war, Dr. Dyson (Christoph Waltz), a cyborg scientist, discovers the wrecked, yet functional body of Alita (Rosa Salazar), a cyborg in the form of a teenage girl. Once functional again, Alita has no memory of her past, and sets out to discover her own secrets despite threats from Vector (Mahershala Ali) and his assistant/lover Chiren (Jennifer Connelly)…who want Alita for her parts. 

BATTLE ANGEL has a lot going on. Alitia is out to discover who she was, Dr. Dyson is dealing with the loss of his daughter while taking on the duties of a clandestine bounty hunter hunting down cyborgs, and the Earth is basically split into two classes; with the lower class scratching out a living on a wrecked Earth and the upper class in a hovering city. The economy in this world seems to center on the Motorball games (a roller-derby competition with cyborgs), which has a black-market underbelly which Alitia’s boy-crush Hugo (Keean Johnson) has a hand in. The weaving script, which Cameron co-wrote, does everything in broad strokes and gets characters from place to place well enough, but it often becomes so convoluted with its own mythology that it becomes hard to follow. But what’s worse is that the stakes here are very low; it all comes down to hunting Alita for her parts for the Motorball games. Ho-hum. 

While the story is messy and un-engaging, Cameron and Rodriguez are building a fantastic looking world. The design of the wrecked future Earth is stunning, and the cyborgs, which are mostly mechanical bodies with human heads…border on grotesque to fascinating. The action sequences; ranging from the Motorball games to closed-quarters hand-to-hand combat, are an absolute thrill with more than one moment to stand up and cheer over. Visual effects for the most part are stunning, although some are somewhat cartoony. The design of Alita herself takes some getting used to with her oversized eyes, but the motion-capture is done well enough that she becomes a full-fledged character that works. 

Acting is all over the place. Rosa Salazar sounds great but it’s hard to tell how much of Alita’s presence on the screen is actually her or just CGI wizardry. Maherashala Ali, Jennifer Connelly, and Christoph Waltz are just walking planks. Keean Johnson has all the charisma of a toaster, and his character is more of a pain-in-the-ass than a help.  The film also has a handful of surprise cameos that are hit-and-miss. 

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL has a lot to enjoy; its production design, set-pieces, action sequences, and technical wizardry are fantastic all around. It could have been a knockout if it delivered at the end, but the last 20 minutes feel rushed and frantic; almost to the point where it feels like it was improvised on the spot, and way too much is punted down the road for a goddamn sequel. It may be fun and Alita just may steal a few hearts, but its messy story and who-cares stakes makes the long wait for her not really worth it. 

BOTTOM LINE: Rent it