Alita: Battle Angel Movie Review

By Ryan Pendleton

Alita: Battle Angel is a 2019 Fantasy/Science Fiction Blockbuster film directed by Spy Kids director Robert Rodriguez and produced by Avatar and The Terminator director James Cameron. The film was distributed by 20th Century Fox, Lightstorm Entertainment, Troublemaker Studios and TSG Entertainment. The movie stars Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Skrein and Mahershala Ali.

Alita: Battle Angel is about a cyber-doctor named Ido finding a decommissioned cyborg named Alita and rebuilding her; once she wakes up, she has no idea who she is and where she’s from. She has to nativage through the futuristic Iron City in order to unveil her mysterious past.

Currently at the moment, the film has grossed $150,990,459 worldwide and it is believed that the movie may be successful even though the score on the infamous Rotten Tomatoes is 59%. The audience score for Alita: Battle Angel is absolutely outstanding; an incredible 94%! The film is a direct adaptation of the Japanese anime/manga series (Japanese comic book) Gunnm or also known as Battle Angel Alita.

Credit to Twentieth Century Fox

This action-packed adventure is filled with interesting and nearly convincing visuals, an intriguing yet somewhat bland story line, absolutely awesome fight scenes and rather decent, but not superb acting. The MAJOR problem everyone has with this movie is that Alita has HUMONGOUS eyes! In the anime or in nearly all anime, the characters’ eyes are big for some reason, but in this movie, the filmmakers decided to take that literal and make her eyes absolutely GIGANTIC. Putting that aside, the movie was overall pretty decent.

Credit to Twentieth Century Fox

Christoph Waltz is always great in any movie he’s in; he was great in Django: Unchained and Big Eyes, but in Alita: Battle Angel, he was rather alright. He wasn’t fabulous or great, but he did rather decent job as the cyber-doctor Ido. Rosa Salazar as Alita was good as well; she did a great job at portraying the character, but those BULBOUS and MONSTROUS eyes and the uninteresting and kind of bland dialogue downgrades her role in a way.

SPOILER ALERT:

In the movie, Alita develops an odd romance with a boy named Yugo while journeying through the city to discover herself. At the same time, she is fascinated with the brutal and intense sport of Motorball. While trying to balance the two, the confusing plot about the bad guys intertwine. At the end of the movie, Yugo, who is turned into a cyborg toward the end of the movie, dramatically dies by falling to his death. After a certain period of unknown time, Alita becomes the all-time winner of Motorball in order to face against the main villain of the film. As soon as it looks like she’s going to accomplish her goal, the movie ends; leading up to a sequel.

Photo Credit: Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.

I arrived to the movie late so I didn’t see the first 8 minutes. When seeing the ending, I was rather disappointed. This movie, to me, should’ve been a one-off deal, but I guess not. I can’t wait to see part 2 (insert sarcasm). Overall, Alita: Battle Angel is a decent and enjoyable movie. Give it try if you’re anime fan or just an action/adventure fan.