Review of Alita: Battle Angel (2019) by Htgamer — 27 Feb 2019

Alita: Battle Angel is a great futuristic cyberpunk movie based on the japanese Battle Angel Alita manga. I'm not familiar with the source material and can't judge how well its themes have been adapted into a film, but I liked what I saw.

The basic story is nothing new. It's the tale of a rich and powerful minority in a dystopian world oppressing the poor and treating them as little more than garbage, while a hero is trying to make things right. However the actual setting, backstories and hints at what has happened is interesting and unique.

Most of the footage is completely CGI, but it's top notch. The action scenes are awesome, especially the Motorball circuit battles. Alita's face being CGI feels uncanny (particularly her bigger-than-normal eyes) compared with the rest of the characters, but then again she's a robot while others are humans with cyborg bodies.

Most of the main actors perform well in this movie, but the star of the show is Alita actress Rosa Salazar. Cristoph Waltz is perfect for Dyson Ido. Keean Johnson is OK as Hugo. Ed Skrein makes for a nice secondary villain in Zapan. But Grewishka's character is just a mindless brute, so Jackie Earle Haley had little actual work to do. Jennifer Connelly didn't impress me as Dr. Chiren, she was stiff and emotionless.

I understand that in the manga the Hugo and Alita love story is central, however I think the love between a robot and a human is non-believable even in the context of a futuristic sci-fi movie.

Another problem is, the screenwriters tried to stuff as much material from the manga as possible into a 2-hour-long movie, and it shows a bit. They should have explained more about the lore of the Alita world, but saved it for a potential sequel. The movie is still highly enjoyable even by people like me that didn't know anything about the manga.

All in all, Alita: Battle Angel is a great sci-fi action movie. I hope there is a sequel.