Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
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Alita: Battle Angel Movie Review
Alita: Battle Angel is a 2019 science fiction action film directed by Robert Rodriguez and starring Rosa Salazar. It’s a passable diversion.
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“I do not stand by in the presence of evil!“
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Literally everything I’ve said about ‘Valerian’ mostly applies here as well, though that one was more visually dazzling personally. Alita is a movie which is so frenetic in action, so hollow in characterization and storytelling that it’s just made for the eyes and never the brain or the heart.
James Cameron produced this movie and he also wrote it. And it just goes to show that he has always been a very mediocre writer as this movie is horribly written, shallow and not well explained at all. I wanted to learn more about this cool world and potentially intriguing characters, but the script never let me learn it.
Couple that with Robert Rodriguez’ per usual bad direction and you’ve got a populist movie for the masses and nothing more than that. But yes, the special effects are truly terrific, in particular the robots looked excellent and very cool. I loved the entire look of this world as it’s fascinating, and the film is instantly memorable in its cyberpunk imagery, and dazzling.
But how could they screw up this cast with two double Oscar winners, I don’t know. Yes, both Mahershala Ali and Christoph Waltz are in this movie, and both are underutilized, very weakly used and disappointing overall. Their talents are wasted entirely.
Most of the characters are like that with the exception of Alita who’s better herself, though still far from great. Rosa Salazar is fine in the role and the character is an admirable, kick-ass heroine, but she was also ultimately bland, and her backstory, though intriguing, was simply not well dealt with at all.
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Alita: Battle Angel is thematically empty too. The dialogue is nothing special, though serviceable, and all of the plot beats overall are fine, but as a whole the film isn’t easy to follow and the script is simply badly written and rushed. The action sequences are undeniably cool with some terrific fights to be had here, but overall it was too fast to be enjoyed more.
Alita: Battle Angel is visually dazzling, very cool in its world building and fun in some well executed anime-inspired action sequences, but the characterization is very slim, Cameron’s script is so mediocre and the entire film is incredibly rushed in both its pacing and its storytelling.
