ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (2019) ***

I feel like I’ve been hearing about Alita:  Battle Angel for twenty years.  I remember James Cameron wanting to make this manga adaptation right after Titanic, but he never quite had the technology at his disposal to do it justice.  Once he got into the Avatar business full time, Cameron decided to hand the directorial reigns over to Robert Rodriguez while still staying on as a producer and co-writer. 

I’m happy to report Alita:  Battle Angel is exactly what you’d think a Rodriguez version of a Cameron movie looks like.  It may have big ideas and a lavish budget, but it keeps Rodriguez’s scrappy B movie spirit.  One can only imagine what it would look like if Cameron was at the helm.  As it stands, it’s an enjoyable, breezy sci-fi action hodgepodge.

A broken robot (Rosa Salazar) is found in a scrap heap by Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz) who restores her and names her Alita.  As she tries to remember her past, Alita explores the city, finds love, and becomes a bounty hunter.  She also finds time to become a Motorball star and uses her newfound popularity to stick it to Nova (the futuristic version of “The Man”), an omnipotent alien who lives in a spaceship hovering over the city and likes to play God with its citizens.

I know Cameron had been developing this for over twenty years, and sometimes it really shows.  It often feels like a ‘90s movie.  With chintzier CGI and action, it would’ve looked right at home on a double bill with The Matrix.  Heck, even some of the brand-new effects are a little on the cheesy side.  (The attempt to make Alita have enormous anime-style eyes isn’t quite successful.)  Even the sport of “Motorball” (a mix of Rollerball and NASCAR) is firmly stuck in the ‘90s as the contestants wear motorized rollerblades, and folks, it doesn’t get much more ‘90s than rollerblades.

I’m not going to lie.  There are some clunky bits, especially in the late stages of the film.  You could probably make a drinking game for every time Jennifer Connelly’s character conveniently shows up to stir the pot.  I’m not sure if even Cameron could’ve made her scenes work.

Alita also suffers from weak finale.  The final confrontation lacks sparks and it tries too hard to set itself up for a sequel.  Instead of a proper ending, we just get a half-assed cliffhanger, which sends you out of the theater with a bad taste in your mouth.

Despite the disappointing ending, there’s enough invention and fun here to fill two movies.  Rodriguez is clearly having a blast playing in Cameron’s sandbox as he delivers some truly eye-popping visuals.  The action is top notch too as the various swordfights and chase scenes are finely executed.  The Motorball sequence is a real doozy too and sort of plays like a meaner version of one of those video game scenes in Spy Kids 3-D.

Speaking of 3-D, the 3-D effects are just alright.  Not a whole lot pops out at the screen, so you’re probably okay to check it out in 2-D.  The only things that jump out at the audience are:

·         3-D Hands

·         3-D Blades

·         3-D Blowtorch

·         3-D Claws

·         3-D Molotov Cocktail

Salazar has a lot of spunk and screen presence and makes for an ideal lead.  She holds her own with Waltz and is quite convincing in her action sequences.  The supporting cast (most of which play robots or cyborgs) is almost unrecognizable (including the surprise reveal of Nova, which I won’t spoil).  All I’ll say is that for all its faults, Alita:  Battle Angel gives us a scene in which Jeff Fahey plays a grizzled cyborg cowboy who owns a pack of robot hunting dogs.  If that doesn’t make you want to see it, nothing will.