Review of Alita: Battle Angel (2019) by Cwilder06 — 14 Feb 2019

First, some context: I loved the manga growing up. Much the same as I loved the manga of Ghost in the Shell, Blade of the Immortal and others that have received the movie treatment. I was an avowed comic book fan and loved Spawn, the Marvel Universe, Sin City, et all. Here's the thing though - I thought most of the Marvel Movies are just okay, Ghost in the Shell was outright bad, Sin City was at best mediocre, so forth. Outside of Nolan's Batman trilogy, Logan and a couple of the Marvel movies (Thor, namely) I've never thought a comic book movie truly did justice to the source material. I tell you this so you have context for where this review is coming from, I'm a comic book fan and nerd who has not liked almost any of the movies based on comic books.

Obviously you can tell based on my rating that I loved Alita. I thought they really nailed it and it disappoints me to see it dumped in February under the expectation of it being a flop. It further disappoints me to see the critical reception which I think is unjust. Hence why I'm going to the pains of taking the time to actually write a review (something I've only done a handful of times to date). Anyhow, here goes:

The Good (in roughly this order).

1. World Building: This feels like the most well realized fantasy world since Lord of the Rings or Blade Runner. The attention to detail, from inhabitants, to cars, to buildings all just feels really thorough. It makes the rest of what happens work so much better because you're willing to believe in the world they've created. 2. Set Pieces: Holy moly, there are just some jaw dropping set pieces. My friend and I were chuckling, whooping and in general just having a blast. They are some of the best action set pieces put on screen in a long, long time. 3. Acting / Characters: I expected pretty good acting given the pedigree of much of the cast (3 oscar winners?!). But Rosa Salazar crushes it. She humanizes a character, at times feeling petulant, foolish, brash but, nearly always, believably so. The characters don't get as much development as they deserve since there is just so much plotting, but it feels like there is a character who has a lot more about them that we don't know, which is a credit to the actors playing them. 4. Villains: The "big bad" feels appropriately intimidating. I love a good antagonist and he is appropriately mysterious and powerful as to make you feel he is an appropriate counterweight to the heroine and also makes you excited to learn more about him. 5. Effects: I am not a big effects person. In general I feel SFX fights lack weight and thus are forgettable. This is, unequivocally, not the case here. This movie probably as the best effects in general (from environment, to characters, etc) I have ever seen. It feels like another major step forward in that department. The Bad.

1. Trying to do too much: They pack A LOT of story in here. There are more subplots than I can count. It's certainly never dull, but it also doesn't give the characters room the breathe. Which is a shame, since the characters are acted well and have interesting motivations/backstory (per the manga) which don't get their due as a result of how much they are trying to pack in. I would have gladly taken a trade off of a bit more character development for a bit less forward propulsion of the overarching story. 2. Plot contrivance: There are a few moments of "wait, how the hell did that person get there?" that really do require suspension of disbelief. They don't do enough to earn it and it feels forced for the sake of moving the breakneck pace of the story forward. They could have made it feel more natural with another 30-60 seconds of context. My strong suspicion is that was there but in an effort to keep the running time down after early testing they cut some of the set-up which left it feeling absolutely manically fast paced.