I’ve never been the biggest fan of Robert Rodriguez’s films, but I have always admired his outsider take on the industry. He’s a filmmaker who likes to have fun regardless of what kind of story he’s telling or what rung of the Hollywood ladder his movies may put him on. With that in mind, Alita is right up his alley but has surprisingly more in common with El Mariachi (1992) than the Spy Kids or Machete franchises. It might be scattered and have too many irons in the fire, but it’s fun, and sometimes that’s enough.
I have very vague recollections of seeing the original Battle Angel anime back in the early ‘90s. Nothing much from it jumps out at me so I’ll leave any comparisons to someone who knows or cares about that sort of thing. Back then Anime titles (we called them “Japanimation” then) were hard to find and sought after, while these days I find 99% of the genre tedious and shallow. Thankfully, the Alita presented by Rodriquez occupies its own world regardless of allegiance to the source material or genre conventions.
The story goes something like this: One day, cybernetics doctor Ido (Christoph Waltz) finds the remains of a robot in a giant trash heap. He fixes it up with a new body and calls it Alita (Rosa Salazar). The world is a nasty place that lies somewhere between Blade Runner and Brazil, with the have-nots occupying the surface and the haves living in a floating city above them. Most people have some form of a cybernetic implant, with the most advanced being criminals, athletes, or “Hunter-Warriors” (registered bounty hunters who bring in rogue cyborgs). Alita can’t remember her past but possesses incredible fighting skills, so we’ve got some Bourne Identity thrown in there for good measure.
There’s a lot going on. In addition to Alita’s search for her past, there are multiple layers of villains ranging from Grewishka (a very large cyborg played by Jackie Earle Haley), Hunter-Warrior Zapan (Ed Skrein), Vector and Chiren (Mahershala Ali and Jennifer Connelly), and all the way up the ladder to Nova (Edward Norton), who is some sort of overseer. Then, add to that the Motorball angle, Hugo’s double dealings (Keean Johnson), and the mysterious URMs, and it gets even more complicated. I wouldn’t go so far as saying that I had a hard time following, but with so many levels of bad guys and so many elements to follow, the whole thing becomes bogged down in its own story. In fact, Alita is so packed with facets that after 125 minutes, there isn’t even an ending (I can only assume there will be a sequel, but that’s a long time just to get us through the set-up).
On the other hand, I fully expected the action to be of the “typical” variety – full of shaky cam, quick cuts, and unfollowable nonsense. I’m pleased to say, however, that the fighting, chase, and Motorball sequences are among the best the action genre has to offer (and I generally hate futuristic sports hemmed into movies). These scenes have a reserved intelligence that’s rarely (never) seen in this type of movie. Every move has a purpose and leads to an entertaining outcome – and for a movie subtitled Battle Angel, there’s a surprisingly small amount of actual battling. When we’re used to frenetic, brash fight scenes from our blockbusters, small, well-timed ones serve to point out the absurdity of it all and prove that sometimes less is more simply by contrast.
I thought I wouldn’t be able to get used to the enlarged Anime style eyes they gave Salazar’s Alita, but that point eventually became a non-issue. The visual style is a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination in the FX category, and unless someone completely reinvents the game, it should win. Unfortunately, along with the overabundant moving parts, there’s some regrettable and disappointing fan-boy fantasy over-sexualization going on by the third act that keeps Alita from achieving the true wonder it was capable of. Total bummer. In the end, it’s an overlong set-up to the eventual “real” story, but at least it’s a fun overlong set-up – if you can get past the shortcomings.
Oh, and there’s lots of UK82 punk rockers wandering the streets. Bonus!
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.