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.
