Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

 

It is 2563, 300 years after Earth was devastated by a catastrophic war known as "The Fall". While scavenging for parts in the massive scrapyard of Iron City, scientist Dr. Dyson Ido discovers a disembodied female cyborg with an intact human brain. Ido attaches a new cyborg body to the brain and re-activates her.

The cyborg wakes with no memory of her past. Dr Ido and names her "Alita", after his deceased daughter, and she quickly settles into his life as a surrogate for the original.

Alita does not initially worry too much about her lost memories, as she is too busy exploring all the new experiences the world has to offer, like making friends and playing the rough and tumble sport of Motorball.

That changes, however, when she secretly follows Dr Ido on a mysterious late night excursion. Ido is ambushed by several thuggish cyborgs, who are on the verge of killing him when Alita jumps into the fray. She instinctively fights using "Panzer-Kunst", a lost combat art for machine bodies.

Obviously, there's something more to Alita's past than she originally thought, and despite Dr Ido's resistance to the idea, she is determined to find out what that is. Of course, her distinctive fighting style quickly draws attention ... some of if very powerful and hostile.

Based on the Japanese manga series Battle Angel Alita, but with a title that was presumably re-structured so that they could make sequels using the same "Alita: Word Word" format, this is a solid science fiction action film. It profits immensely in its casting of Rosa Salazar in the lead role. She brings a great combination of fierceness and innocence to Alita, succeeding in engaging me in her journey of self-discovery despite a couple of counter-productive creative decisions that made her job all the harder.

I've already alluded to the first of those counter-productive decision in my discussion of the title: this film is clearly desperate to be the launch pad of an Alita franchise.  This is apparent both in the structure of the story - Alita completes her immediate goals, but her primary enemy is still well out of her reach - and in the casting.  Said enemy is played by Edward Norton, who is too high profile for such a small part unless you plan to make much more use of him in the future.  Michelle Rodriguez and Jai Courtney also have tiny cameo roles, doubtless for similar reasons.

Now to be fair, Alita does a better job of being a satisfying 'one-and-done' movie that many such want-to-be franchise starters.  However, the very much 'to be continued' ending is a bit on the nose.  I get that Marvel's success in building a massive cinematic franchise is something everyone wants to copy, but don't undermine your opening film to do it, guys.  

The second counter-productive decision is the one to give Alita huge CGI "anime eyes", which I found very 'uncanny valley' and off-putting when I first saw them in the trailer.  I got used them over the course of the film, but still don't think they were a good idea.  For one thing, CGI-ing these into practically every shot of Alita must have added time and cost to the production.  For another, it takes away from Ms Salazar's ability to use her own eyes to convey emotion.  She does a good job of overcoming that, but she shouldn't have needed to.  I really don't see any upside to this decision.

Despite those couple of missteps though, this is a solid SF action film with a good cast.