Alita: Battle Angel

image source

Alita: Battle Angel is based off the manga, and has been in development for several years. Originally, this was intended be producer James Cameron’s next project following the short lived television series Dark Angel, all the way back in 2003. Obviously, things didn’t go that way, seeing as Avatar was released first instead. Before I go any further with this review, I should mention that I have never read the manga. So, I will be judging this purely as a movie on its own. The film follows a cyborg named Alita (played by Rosa Salazar) trying to navigate the world, and learn both who and what she is after her dismembered body is discovered in a scrapyard by Ido (played by Christoph Waltz). Ido puts her back together, minus memories of whatever her previous life was. OK, the plot is a lot more complicated than that. In the hands of far less skilled people than the likes of James Cameron and director Robert Rodriguez, this would be an extremely hard balancing act. But, the film is surprisingly easy to follow. I suppose I should talk about my issues with the movie first, as they are honestly very few. The one problem I really have with this film is Jennifer Connelly’s performance. Connelly never really comes off as though she is actually invested. Every time she is on screen, I just think “please emote.” Although, I do have to admit that I’ve never particularly liked Connelly as an actress. Fortunately, everything else in this film seems to work. The romantic subplot might not work for everybody, but it did work for me. Although I do have to admit, a lot of that probably comes from the fact that Rosa Salazar as Alita is the movie’s greatest strength (alongside the visuals). Salazard plays both the badass warrior and the naive innocent to a tee. Yes, I should say again the other thing that is truly stellar about this film is the visual effects. They are wonderful to look at. I also have to say that they really didn’t distract from the movie for me. Instead, they helped enhance the overall experience. Overall, I truly loved and admired Alita: Battle Angel in almost every way possible.

9 / 10