Alita: Battle Angel

submitted by

Thomas

Thursday, October 3, 2019 - 10:39

6.5

Directed by:

Robert Rodriguez

Starring:

Rosa Salazar

Christoph Waltz

Apparently James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar) had been working transforming the adaptation of this Yukito Kishiro comic for years, doing everything except for actually making the movie because… you know, he’s also working on a zillion Avatar sequels that I doubt anyone is waiting for. The only reason you can now finally watch ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ is because Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Desperado) liked the idea and folded his ass into the director’s chair.

Alita (Rosa Salazar) is a cyborg who wakes up in a future world with no memories of her past. That world is called Iron City and it’s basically a junkyard. The lucky ones are living in Zalem, a city that is hovering in the sky. If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because you have seen Elysium.

Anyway, Alita is taken in by Ido (Christoph Waltz), a cyborg doctor who senses there is something special about this little scrapper. As she learns to find her way through the treacherous streets of Iron City, Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious history while her street-smart new friend Hugo (Keean Johnson) takes the opposite approach and offers to help trigger her memories. When Alita does finally discover a clue to her past, the deadly and corrupt forces that run the city come after her. Will she be able to save her friends, her family and the world she's grown to love? WILL SHE? I don’t want to give away too much here, but it’s a Hollywood movie. What do you think?

Storywise, this one leaves a bit to be desired and it may all be too young adult-y for the actual adults among us, but ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ is entertaining and at the very least, it looks pretty amazing. The reason Cameron approached Rodriguez is probably because of the man’s experience with motion capture from his Sin City days. And well, Rodriguez doesn’t disappoint there. Now, if only they had given the characters some more depth so that we actually cared about them and then added some humor, this one would have been a lot better. Instead of a main course, it now feels more like a $200 million snack.