Trailer- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7pYhpJaJW8
Rating- PG-13
Genre- action/adventure/romance
Warnings- Swearing/disturbing imagery
From the paper to the big screen, the story of Alita: Battle Angel became a manga inspired movie that tells the origins of a cyborg woman who is found to have lost all of her memories and must re-discover them at the same time that she learns about the new community she's in known as the mysterious space city, Zalem.
It is an action packed science fiction flick has returned to the spotlight in 2019 thanks to director Robert Rodriquez, yet as impressive as this revival may be, I have not heard a single peep from anyone who was interested in watching an Alita movie.
Until the trailers for this film were released, I never even knew that this story existed nor was there a lot of demand for it to be brought to American audiences. Because of this, I came into the theater with my popcorn and nachos feeling indifferent about sitting through this. There was no preconceptions and thus, no reason to expect this to be awful or great, but of course I was hoping for greatness.
Therefore, was Alita: Battle Angel the type of movie that kept my eye on the screen or was it just a waste of time?
Given that I never read the manga, I will not be making any comparisons between the manga and the film however I could definitely tell that a lot of the world building was crammed into this film. From beginning to end, there's a lot of locations and facts about this universe that was hard to keep track of even if it was intriguing to listen to. Within the two hour and two minute timeframe, it still felt like there wasn't enough time to take in the settings and so I was left with a little bit of a migrane trying to contain it all.
Despite this, the settings were diverse. The city itself looked run down but had a wholesome feel to it where you get the sense that everyone excluding the villains are a tight knit bunch that are easy to get along with. This is a high contrast to how the city is at night where it's much more chilling as you see the villains lurking around the area terrorizing the town, and this movie does get pretty gruesome so the scenes where it is dark, rainy or gloomy is almost always meant to give you goosebumps.
Alita (Rosa Salazar) ends up discovering early on in the film that she belongs to a different world that it located above Zalem and a lot of citizens attempt to reach that land, which I saw as a metaphor for being high class. That may not be the case at all, but certain characters are seen desperately trying to reach that place by any means necessary and that could be a representation about people can backstab each other to receive a greater gain. Alita is not one of those people; it is no spoiler that she belongs to that world and through trying to reach her home she tries to piece together what kind of person she was before losing her memory.
While it appears throughout the film that she was an important character within her former society, I must say that the way she behaves does not scream, "leader like." The movie makes her out to be this woman of great potential, but her childish behavior does not match up to those expectations. I understand not knowing who you were, but that doesn't mean your brain will be reduced to that of a child.
I think it was the acting that made me peeved by the character, because it's also understandable that discovering a new society can be fascinating for everyone but that fascination felt too forced for my liking. With everything, Alita would be like, "Woah! What's that?!" and be smiling and giggling over it that is more reminiscent of a child than a grown woman.
Her interactions with people was more off putting to me though, as it revealed more of her childish nature. Starting with the man who rescues her, Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz), their relationship is the typical rebellious teenage girl trope where she wishes to do something that goes against her father's wishes and because of this she gets mad and does it anyway only to prove that her way was right after all and she should do what she wants because she needs to grow up. At least, that's how I saw their connection developing.
Alita's bond with love interest, Hugo (Keenan Johnson) is even more obvious that it made me groan internally with every lingering scene of either of them having fond feelings for one another. I don't know if their relationship is depicted in the manga, but I am sick and tired of people believing that romance must be included in every story.
Come to think of it, their romance takes up most of the film!
Hugo is literally the first young male Alita interacts with and right away she has heart eyes for this guy and Hugo's friend calls him out on having a girlfriend, and it's all so cliche. By the end of the film, I noticed that much of Alita's motivations to succeed stemmed from her love for Hugo and she was willing to go through great lengths just to make him happy which comes off so toxic than romantic to me.
I didn't find Alita to be a strong character because of that, because she would have to be told over and over by Hugo to not give herself to him just for the sake of his happiness, which takes away any power she could've had by discovering that by herself.
Hugo himself is actually a little more complex than I expected him to be upon first meeting him. He does come off as the generic love interest, but he's also lurking within his own personal desires that could hinder Alita's mission to find out more about herself and that would've been great to play up on even more yet it felt deflated with how non-combative Alita is about the issue. Even if Hugo did a horrible thing to hinder her chances of reaching her goal, she would still blame herself for his mistakes. I'm all for complex characters and leads that are not picture perfect, but this rubbed me off the wrong way.
On the bright side, when people say that this is an action movie, they are telling the truth. This is packed with some delicious imagery of fighting scenes between humans and cyborgs that are unique from what I've witnessed before. The character designs for the cyborgs were interesting and it makes me want to improve on my own imagination and think outside of the box on how to design people from now on.
The gore in this movie is present nearing the end of the film but when it comes, it comes at you hard. Once it begins, there appears to be no end in sight until the end credits and I'm left thinking about how harsh it came for the characters, but I loved it. From decapitations to pure mutilation, this movie holds no barriers in the killing area but it is never overdone.
It's not as vicious as what you would see in the Final Destination or Evil Dead franchise, because a lot of the characters are cyborgs so the bloody scenes are watered down to just having different colored blood and thus, the fear factor that comes from the deaths aren't as strong. You'd probably be more like, "Awesome!" than screaming your head off.
Still, be wary of bringing any children to this film as it could be too much for them to handle. Aside from the violence, there are a few curse words thrown here and there, with an F-bomb for good measure but there aren't any sexual scenarios that you'd need the cover the younger ones eyes for.
Alita: Battle Angel is certainly setting itself up for a sequel based on how the movie ends but I don't know if I want one. While the action scenes and settings were intriguing enough to look at, the connections and conflicts between the characters felt forced to me and Alita herself didn't feel original. She just reminded me of a teenage girl with her first crush rebelling against her father more than a professional fighter. This movie is built up for more story involving Alita as there are still things left unexplained, but whether I chose to see it or not I don't know.
I give Alita: Battle Angel a 3 out of 5 stars.
P.S Yes, the animation on Alita's eyes did bother me at first but you get used to them very quickly. I wouldn't count that as a negative against the movie.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
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I wasn't a big fan of how the first thing we see in the movie is a black screen that says, "three years after the fall" because it doesn't allow the audience to stay in the mystery of the situation for just a little more. Dr. Dyson Ido says this to Alita not long afterwards, so why put that in there? Just start the movie with the scene of the rubble.
Thankfully, Alita speaks the same language as everyone else or else this would've been a tougher introduction to the town.
I found the actress' reaction to the ship in the sky to be way too stiff. There could've been another take on that.
I wish the very first young male I am introduced to could be my love interest. If only life were that easy...
Alita, give it time. Hugo is not the most attractive man out there.
I loved how as soon as Alita left the house, she ran into that lady with the gem on her head that I'm pretty sure is Demi Moore.
"Our daughter is dead," thank you for spelling that out! I didn't know from Ido's assistant's concerned look when he named Alita that that was because she was named after his dead daughter. It doesn't make sense to tell your ex-wife, the lady who birthed your dead daughter and knows that the dead daughter is dead that your daughter is dead.
They're making this romance between Alita and Hugo way too obvious. You know what would've been really cool? If they made a romance between Alita and Tanji, the skateboard guy who was messing with her. Not everything is butterflies and rainbows, and believe it or not, sometimes couples don't immediately get attracted to each other at first! Then again, that's also a typical trope, the opposites attract thing...ugh.
Hugo- "You've seen it, you just can't remember" Alita- "What do you mean?" It means exactly what it means. You know that you lost your memory, why is this confusing to you?
Alita looked really cute when she was preparing to fight that cyborg lady, like you could tell she was afraid but willing to fight anyways.
Don't hiss cyborg girl! You're not Voldo from the Soul Caliber series.
Really? A "Hi-yah!"?
Why push over Ido but kill the daughter? How did he kill the daughter anyways? Did he knock her over or grabbed her and ran away? I didn't see a body either way. With the blood that is shown in the rest of the movie, they could've benefited from showing a little blood, or at least show the daughter lying on the floor unresponsive.
Alita- "You might mess up your hair" Also Alita, seconds later- "You do not deserve such a weapon" These two lines have very different tones it's funny and threw me off a bit. The first part is like a teenage girl being playful and the other is a powerful queen speaking to her subjects.
Alita- "You didn't leave me a choice" Yes, so I went and started a fight in a bar. It's your fault I fought all of these people.
So...the point of the dog and its death was to take its blood for a dramatic scene? Interesting...
"Welcome to the underworld, my world," Boy, that's the New York train station.
The shot of her being torn apart was really cool.
Yay! We got our one and only F-bomb!
When did Tanji say that he didn't like Alita? I mean, I just took their bickering as innocent, I didn't see it as Tanji really hating Alita. Also, since we discover that Tanji dies by the end of the movie, what point does this serve to the movie to have this intimate scene of him realizing that Alita is more than she seems?
Come Alita, we must venture to our kissing spot that was shown in the trailer.
How convenient for Hugo that Alita was so willing to give up her heart for him when he was just told that he needed to bring her heart to the villain.
Hugo gives a nice message on how people shouldn't give themselves up for their partner. Why is Hugo the one giving this speech and not Alita? Wouldn't it have been more impactful to see the main character finally realize on her own that she shouldn't give herself up for Hugo? Because without this, Alita comes off as these immature love sick puppy that only discovers her worth because Hugo told her to.
Of course they had to kill Tanji, the token black friend. I'm really not too frustrated about it though, because it shows that this movie got real.
Ally's a cute nickname to give Alita. Nice job, Hugo.
Hugo- "He killed Tanji" Alita- "What do you mean?" It means exactly what it means.
Don't kiss Hugo while he's bleeding out! I wouldn't feel aroused by that, I'd feel pain!
I guess Hugo being a cyborg is a decent punishment for amputating other cyborgs.
Alita, Hugo has told you that he participated in the death of many cyborgs. It is not your fault!
*After Alita kills villain and is told Hugo is on the loose* There's still more to this movie?! Who wasn't keeping their eye on Hugo?
*Seeing Cyborg Hugo get ripped apart*...Pfft! Buahahaha! That's what you get, you stupid kid!
Really? Slicing your tear in half? How...symbolic?
Hugo will come back. Alita fell the same way after all. This isn't surprising me at all.
The end credits song is called Swan Song by: Dua Lupa, just in case you wanted to know. I know I did because I wanted to hear it again after I left the theater.
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