Alita: Battle Angel
(20th Century Fox)
By Lucas Allen
For the first time in his career, director Robert Rodriguez moves away from his renegade-style independent film-work to direct a large-scale blockbuster with the help of co-writer/producer James Cameron.
Based on the early-90s manga “Gunnm,” by Yukito Kishiro, “Alita: Battle Angel” channels past sci-fi films of futuristic societies and artificial intelligence with a brave heroine audiences will cheer for.
While not entirely original, the movie’s weird and bizarre personality certainly stands out from the crowd.
In the year 2536, the floating city of Zalem hovers over the poor habitats of Iron City, whose denizens are being watched over by the mysterious Nova. Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) is ravaging the dump left behind by the floating city when he comes across the damaged remains of an android with a human brain still working inside. The doctor patches it up and names it Alita (Rosa Salazar), who he raises to be like the young daughter he tragically lost. But Alita’s curiosity grows when she befriends a teenage boy named Hugo (Keean Johnson), who shows her around and how to survive in this post-apocalyptic society after the big event called The Fall happened.
Sooner or later, she begins to remember the past life she couldn’t before, that of a fierce warrior during The Fall. With the help of her new friend, she begins a journey to unlock her lost memories including discovering a battle suit she might’ve used long ago.
Eventually, Alita uses the opportunity to take part in Iron City’s dangerously competitive arena sport, Motorball, to see if it can help her remember more. However, the sport’s promoter Vector (Mahershala Ali) along with Ido’s ex-wife Chiren (Jennifer Connelly) under Nova’s orders uses their android bounty hunters to destroy her.
Like one of Ido’s repair work in the movie, this film combines parts from other films of this sort like “Blade Runner,” “District 9” and “Hunger Games” into one whole film. With two acclaimed directors together, the result is a dark and violent yet unusually fascinating story that’s easy for fans to engage in. Whether or not you ever read the manga, you’ll find yourself entertained by this new iteration that should be appealing to audiences of any age. There’s also enough surprises that will have you wanting to see more of this universe.
While the story lacks in originality, the movie managed to excel in the visual appearance thanks to some groundbreaking effects work. Alita’s look is certainly different, but also unique and fits perfectly with the visual tone. The other androids have a frightening aesthetic look to it that adds to their villainous demeanor especially the character of Zapan (Ed Skrein) whose over-the-top evilness are delightfully cheesy. It does take some time out of its two-hour runtime to show Motorball including a thrilling sequence that feels like an updated take on Rollerball but with robots killing each other.
Salazar is a revelation in her lead performance giving her character an earnest feel along with her incredible array of martial-arts skills. Waltz is great as the fatherly scientist whose own heart is in the right place despite some questionable choices he makes. Ali and Connelly unfortunately don’t do a lot, but they tried well giving the material they had to work with. All you need to know is that much of the movie is trying to set up Nova (played by a very talented Oscar-nominated actor) as the main bad guy for some possible sequels.
While not great, “Alita: Battle Angel” will certainly gain a sizable cult following in the coming months with enough demand for another installment to happen. This science fiction universe is interesting enough that you don’t want to leave once the credits roll.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 3.25 Stars (Out of Four)
