“Alita: Battle Angel” is a Visually Stunning, Expensive Popcorn Flick
This article was originally published online in Columbia Undergraduate Film Productions Entertainment in February 2019.
Alita: Battle Angel, based on the manga series Battle Angel Alita by Yukito Kishiro, follows a cyborg named Alita (Rosa Salazar) as she rediscovers her past and forges her future. Along the way, a cyborg doctor, Dyson Ido (Christopher Waltz), and a neighborhood kid, Hugo (Keean Johnson), help her find her footing in this world. Alita uncovers glimpses of her memories and the secrets that those around her keep, learning in the process that the world is not as wondrous as she envisioned it to be. Watching her every move are Chiren (Jennifer Connolly) and Vector (Mahershala Ali), working to stop her from discovering the truth at the command of their unseen overlord, Nova (Edward Norton).
The world that the Iron City, Zalem, and the United Republic of Mars (URM) inhabit is beautifully built. Cyborgs, robots, and humans coexist relatively peacefully, and when things go south there is a league of Hunter-Warriors to step in and clean up the mess for a fair bounty. Besides the story elements, the visuals are impressively realistic, down to the robotic prosthetics and careful selection of color palate. The only outlier is, notably, Alita’s inexplicably enormous eyes. The action is well-paced and, above all, balanced. Alita neither wins too many fights nor too little, and the ways in which she loses or wins never feel engineered for the sake of plot. Even the characters are well designed, at a quick glance. Their motivations are incredibly grounded, yet the lengths to which characters go in order to fulfill their goals are beautifully attuned to the futuristic setting of the film.
If all that is true, then how can it be a popcorn flick? Slight spoilers ahead.
The biggest problem this film has is its ambitions. It has the makings of something fantastic; however, almost all of the action and world-building is directed towards the cause of creating a new franchise. The story does not necessarily suffer for this, even though the dialogue and plot points sometimes seem like they were gleaned from a list of science-fiction tropes. What suffers the most for these ambitions is the haphazard characterization. Alita suffers from a severe case of Born Sexy Yesterday that is too deeply engrained in her design to fully unpack here. This design flaw is disappointingly ironic considering producer James Cameron’s criticism of the feminism presented in Wonder Woman (2017). The film also recycles the same joke (if that’s what it should be called) that was made in Terminator 3 involving a cyborg’s breasts, which is potentially a coincidence since Cameron was not actually involved in Rise of the Machines. It still is carelessly objectifying, unnecessary, and above all tacky.
Hugo’s secondary struggle reads as extremely shallow, rendering him more of obnoxious than a friend-turned-boyfriend should typically be. It is understandable that it would be difficult to explain to his cyborg girlfriend that he attacks and dismembers other cyborgs for parts in order to pay his way to Zalem. Especially when she offers to collect bounties as a Hunter-Warrior in order to pay for both of them to go. He eventually makes the choice to get out of the trade, but at that point their relationship is so serious that it is his only choice.
More significantly, considering the sequel-baiting, we only get a glimpse of the true Nova. Vector and Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley) are both possessed by Nova at times, but even though we see Nova watching Alita from Zalem, the inclusion of his true body is meant to tease and trick the audience into wanting (and supporting) a sequel film. How he controls others is never even alluded to. It simply happens. The only worse lack of characterization can be found in the woman in Alita’s past. Alita only recovers three memories in the film, and – if my memory serves – this woman is in all of them. Memory of her gives Alita the nickname “99,” the strength to carry on, and the knowledge necessary to try to save Hugo.
When the protagonists suffer from this lack of in-depth characterization, both the story and the audience’s interest suffers for it. Alita sets itself up for a sequel, but that doesn’t mean that I or anyone else is necessarily interested in it. To be fair, I would be interested in a sequel only because I was left deeply unsatisfied with what I did see. I expected so much more from Alita – most of all Alita herself.
The true savior of this film was the acting and how it transformed the more nuanced moments of dialogue. Rosa Salazar brought life and realism to a cybernetic cliché. Jennifer Connolly’s face and eyes alone allowed audiences to follow Chiren’s journey from an antagonistic figure to a kinder, intelligent woman merely led astray from her own goals. Christopher Waltz’s Dr. Ido was easy to sympathize with, and Hugo’s gang of friends were surprisingly multifaceted for how little they appeared.
Alita: Battle Angel promised much more than it delivered. Still, it succeeded in creating a strong cinematic debut for the potential Alita franchise and raised the bar for high-quality CGI visuals. Whether or not this was enough for it to have a future remains to be seen.