Alita: Battle Angel - Review

The perfect analogy I can think of for this movie is a tugboat pulling cargo down a river. Just hear me out. The tugboat is the movie and where the river meets the ocean, let's call this area, "satisfaction land." So our tugboat, let's call her Alita, is chugging away down the river making good time. Early on, it seems like the tugboat might be able to reach "satisfaction land" ahead of schedule, however, along the journey, our little Alita has to make some stops along the river and pick up some cargo (plotlines).

Naturally, the more cargo added, the slower the boat goes. Throughout the journey, more and more cargo gets added and in the end, our little Alita runs out of fuel with "satisfaction land" just out of reach.

When Alita: Battle Angel started, I felt like I was watching Star Wars again. I was immediately sucked in by the gorgeous looking world of Iron City down below and the sky city of Zalem above and intrigued by the mystery of a war that took place long ago and an event known as "The Fall". So the stage was set for a gripping story to unfold with some great characters.

At first, it seemed like that is what we were in store for. We are introduced to Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) who finds our main character Alita (Rosa Salazar) who at this point, is just a human brain inside of a robotic torso in a junkyard. Both of them form a father-daughter-like bond and Alita, wide-eyed (literally) and curious, starts exploring the streets of Iron City and starts to learn along with us about the world and what dangers lie around the corner. The most important piece of knowledge is that the most proven way to get up to Zalem, the city in the sky, is to compete in a majorly popular sport known as Motorball and maintaining a long winning streak. By the way, the sport of Motorball just screams Japanese Anime.

After the first 30 minutes, I was thinking to myself, "Man, I can't wait to see where this goes once the plot really starts to get going." After another 30 minutes, I was thinking, "Okay, now the plot is going to start and it's going to get good." After another 30 minutes, I started checking my watch and thinking, "when is this movie actually going to start?" Unfortunately, at that point, the movie was beyond saving.

However, before I go into the bad stuff, let me talk about what I enjoyed in this movie. I really liked Rosa Salazar as Alita. She mixes the perfect balance between the innocent, curious girl who is fascinated by all she sees around her and the badass girl that quite frankly, doesn't seem like she can be stopped. She definitely has the power to hold a franchise like this. She also has great chemistry with Christoph Waltz who, let's be honest is almost too good for this movie. Every time he is on screen, my eyes were glued to him. He has the ability to make you listen whenever he is talking and however I do feel like the movie takes advantage of his charisma too much and his character later on in the movie is only used for exposition dumps.

I can really tell that James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez really cared about this movie because it doesn't feel half-assed. The visual effects really are stunning and you can tell that they really care about the source material. For example, the motorball sequences are absolutely breathtaking and the action fight scenes are really well executed. However, I feel like that was a detriment to the movie because I feel like it focused more on covering all the ground with all the side characters and side plots to set them up for future sequels rather than focusing on more important things like the main villain.

This movie is a disappointing one because it has all the elements that really captivated me right from the start. A compelling main character, a unique and twisted world and a sense of mystery that was really captivating. Unfortunately, the movie kept adding on plot details that made it lack focus and throughout the film I cared less and less until I wanted it to be over. I am curious about a sequel, but for this first entry, I was a bit of a letdown.