Alita: Battle Angel Review

James Cameron’s adaptation of Alita: Battle Angel has been long in the waiting. It has now come to be thanks to director Robert Rodriguez giving us one of the best Western adaptations of a Japanese property.

The year is 2563, it has been 300 years since a catastrophic event known as The Fall. In the scrap yards of Iron City Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) makes an amazing discovery – the torso of a teenage girl (Rosa Salazar) with a functioning brain. Ido gives the girl a body and names her Alita. With no memory of who she was Alita explores Iron City with wide-eyed innocents – making friends, become a motorball player, fights crime and face off against the corrupt forces who control the city.

When it comes to adapting anime and manga Hollywood has often missed the mark. Many adaptations have been criticised for racially insensitive casting, simplifying the story or completely missing the point of the source material. Even the better adaptations like 2017’s Ghost in the Shell had issues because it toned down the philosophical message and having a controversial internal reason for why the main character was white. However, Alita: Battle Angel had a lot more goodwill from audiences because of the involvement of Cameron and Rodriguez.

Cameron is known for making some brilliant and popular sci-fi films like the first two Terminator films and Aliens whilst Rodriguez is known for being a fun filmmaker. They are from different schools of filmmaking – Cameron thinks about every detail when creating a story and world – often pushing film technology to its limit. Rodriguez is a genre filmmaker who has a love for B-Movies and can get the most out of a limited budget. On the surface this seems like an odd team yet they worked well together and they do share one trait – they love having strong female characters in their films.

Alita: Battle Angel is Rodriguez’s first film made with a budget over the $100 million mark and he steps up for to the challenge. As expected from a big budget sci-fi film the special effects were fantastic and he was able to make impressive action sequences. The two major sequences were Alita’s fights against Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley), a giant cyborg and the motorball battle, making the film great popcorn fodder.

When promoting the film Rodriguez, Cameron and many of the stars have stated that Alita: Battle Angel is a political film. There are certainly elements of this because of the wealth device, a small elite dominates over a city where people live in improvised conditions and many people want to live in the sky-city of Zalem floating above Iron City. This gives Alita: Battle Angel an air of Neil Blomkamp’s Elysium and to a lesser extent District 9. Iron City was set in a Central American nation added to comparisons of Elysium. Yet, the political elements of the film were only skin deep, there is no depth to them.

There were also elements of films of the Robocop in its visuals and themes – the climax pretty much was a remake of the original Robocop finale. A scene outside the old church must have been a reference to the classic silent film Metropolis. Making all these comparisons is a positive and negative because if people who like those films should enjoy Alita: Battle Angel. But the film can also be seen as unoriginal.

Rodriguez makes Alita: Battle Angel a bit like a sci-fi version of a Western. Iron City is a lawless hellhole where any law enforcement is performed by bounty hunters. A scene where Alita fight a number of bounty hunters in a bar is basically a modernised version of a clichéd Western trope.

Surprisingly the weakest part of the film was the screenplay. Manga books are often big chunky things that span volumes and Alita: Battle Angel tries to fit too much into the two hour running time. There are numerous plotlines and some are not fleshed out. Despite Alita becoming a bounty hunter she doesn’t do much bounty hunting and a subplot involving women disappearing and being cut up goes nowhere. For a film about a badass cyborg warrior the middle of the film turns into a darker looking version of Speed Racer.

Alita: Battle Angel is a spectacular looking film due to its special effects and action and the film will leave you longing for more. It’s a shame that the film is projected to be a flop, making any follow up unlikely.