Alita: Battle Angel (Review)
Alita: Battle Angel Proves We Still Can’t Make Descent Live Action Anime Adaptations.
James Cameron has wanted to make Alita: Battle Angel since the mid-90s. Well, it would seem that his persistence has paid off because it’s finally managed to make it’s
Set in a dystopian future, the titular Alita (played by Rosa Salazar) is discovered by a cybernetic doctor (Christoph Waltz) in a trash heap. Unfortunately, he doesn’t leave her there and after a bit of tinkering, she awakens with amnesia. Alita takes in the world with a childlike sense of wonder, which is incredibly creepy given how enormous her eyes are and how powerful she proves to be. As the story unfolds though, she never actually grows as a character. Instead, she proves herself over and over again to be as despicable as the villains she so valiantly stands against. Despite consistent attempts to prove herself a warrior seeking to protect the weak, Alita only shows herself to be a self-absorbed tyrant who demands loyalty and comradery without taking the time to prove she’s worthy of it. At one point she literally goes directly from receiving her bounty hunting license to a bar where she insults and then brutally assaults other cyborgs who refuse to “fight by her side,” even though none of them have ever laid eyes on her before. Over the course of the movie, she proves to be neither the hero Iron City needs or deserves.
In all honesty, I was really looking forward to finally seeing Alita: Battle Angel. After all, I’m a huge anime geek and have a lot of respect for James Cameron and director Robert Rodriguez. However, nothing seems to go right when it comes to this movie. Rodriguez has never really been the kind of director to demand deep and emotional performances from his actors, but Alita: Battle Angel features performances that would make the likes of Tommy Wiseau cringe. Salazar’s portrayal of Alita is soulless and grows creepier and creepier over the course of the film, especially during the moments she expresses what I can only assume is joy. If it was only Salazar, then I might be able to move past her wooden performance, but the likes of Christoph Waltz and Mahershala Ali prove to be tolerable at best. The problem is that none of the actors are able to give convincing performances, because it’s clear that not even they’re buying what they’re selling.
This is really just the tip of the iceberg with Alita: Battle Angel. Cameron co-wrote the script along with Rodriguez and Laeta Kalogridis. Like so many other well-intentioned movies with multiple writers, Alita: Battle Angel suffers from too many cooks in the kitchen and its focus wanes early on. Alita finds herself becoming a bounty hunter in order to protect the weak, a wanna-be professional motor ball player (it’s basically future roller derby) and taking on an evil scientist (Edward Norton) in a floating city. It’s a lot to take in, especially once you toss in a romance and amnesia on top of it. Alita: Battle Angel tries to do so much it and because of this it never manages to do any part of its story justice. For a movie about a character so concerned with proving her humanity, it never gives her a chance to do that. Instead, it’s more concerned with showing off just how pretty it can be.
The real stars of Alita: Battle Angel are the hard-working members of the visual effects team that created such an incredibly detailed and jaw-dropping CGI. The entire film is truly a sight to behold with great care taken to create incredibly intricate and memorable characters (especially in the case of Ed Skrein). However, the great visual beauty of Alita: Battle Angel only highlights how shallow and pedantic everything else in the film is. Of course, it also doesn’t help that Alita’s uncannily huge eyes never lose their jarring effect and constantly keep audience’s at arm’s length. Even still, I have to give credit where it’s due, and at the very least Alita: Battle Angel is a very pretty movie to look at.
I’ve always been of the frame of mind that movies can be simply fun for the sake of it. However, there’s nothing even that “fun” about Alita: Battle Angel. It’s an incoherent mess of a movie desperate to cram as much as it can down audience’s throats before the credits roll. Even with all its incredible visuals and awe-inspiring action sequences, I found myself wanting to walk out of Alita: Battle Angel. Not even the incredible talent that came together to make this movie proved capable of saving it from itself. Hopefully, this review will save you from wasting your money on seeing it in theaters.
