Movie Review: Alita Battle Angel

Alita Battle Angel (2019) 

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Written by James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis

Starring Christoph Waltz, Rosa Salazar, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earl Haley

Release Date February 14th, 2019

Published February 14th, 2019

Alita Battle Angel has been the dream of director-producer James Cameron for a number of years. While he’d placed the project on the backburner to focus on his Avatar franchise, Cameron never stopped loving Yukito Kishiro’s unique comic universe. Though he eventually walked away from directing Alita Battle Angel, Cameron can be credited for keeping the idea alive as a film property and that life is now realized with director Robert Rodriguez bringing Alita to the big screen. 

Alita Battle Angel is a CGI part live action adventure starring unknown newcomer Rosa Salazar as the titular Alita. Alita is a cyborg warrior who was found mostly dead and forgotten in a junkyard by Dr Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz). Dr Ido put Alita back together inside the cyborg body that he’d once intended to give to his daughter. In this body, Alita is essentially, in many ways just a teenage girl but because of her cyborg heart, she has a quickness and fighting acumen that rivals any man. 

Slowly, Alita begins to regain her memory. After a particularly dramatic and violent moment in which she realizes she has serious violent tendencies, Alita remembers that she was once a warrior and now she wants to put that side of herself to good use as a bounty hunter. This is something Dr Ido strongly opposes but he cannot stop here. At the same time, Alita has also begun entering a romantic relationship with a flesh and blood human named Hugo (Keean Johnson). 

Both Hugo and Dr Ido have secrets that they are keeping from Alita, secrets that will be revealed and shape the early plot of Alita Battle Angel. It’s these secrets that tie in the other supporting players in this adventure including Chiren (Jennifer Connelly) a fellow doctor who takes a keen interest in Alita and the dangerous Vector (Mahershala Ali) who acts as the eyes and ears and event the occasional avatar of the film’s true big bad, named Nova. I won’t spoil the cameo of the big name actor who plays Nova as the film spoils it in remarkable fashion. 

Not spoil in the sense of revealing something too soon. Rather, the way this big name cameo is revealed is akin to something spoiled and rotting. This cameo reeks to high heaven. It’s an absolute laugh out loud stinker of the lowest calibur. The cameo comes along in an already faltering third act of Alita and provides a yawp of unintended laughter before becoming a highly problematic plot point as the film comes to a close. 

I won’t spoil the ending as even my negative review of Alita Battle Angel likely won’t prevent many from seeing it. Plus, I actually don’t hate Alita Battle Angel, not completely. The first two acts of Alita Battle Angel were unexpectedly emotional and compelling. Rosa Salazar is a young actor to watch. What she lacks in experience and chops she makes up for with confidence and energy. Some may find her enthusiasm cloying but I found it winning, for 2 out of three acts of the movie. 

I even admired the attempts at romance in Alita Battle Angel. Yes, there are odd questions that the main character raises as a cyborg teenage girl, many of those questions being deeply unsettling or creepy but nevertheless. That said, Salazar sparks well with fellow newcomer Keean Johnson and I liked the plot complications that Hugo brings to this story. In pro wrestling terminology, Hugo is what we call a tweener, a character somewhere between good and evil and teetering one way or the other. 

There is perhaps almost too much Oscar gold in Alita Battle Angel. The pedigree is darn near distracting with three Oscar winners, four if you count Christoph Waltz twice, one Oscar nominee, an unrecognizable Jackie Earle Haley, and a cameo from an Oscar nominee. Robert Rodriguez has stacked the cast with Academy faves in order to balance out his romantic leads, both newcomers who benefit from the Awards savvy supporting players. 

Even that amount of talent however, can’t save Alita from a third act that flies laughably off the rails. As Alita is fighting her way toward the biggest of the big bads in Alita Battle Angel, she makes choices that make little sense. She suddenly buys into a plot point regarding a warrior code that was not well established before in the plot. This is done for the purpose of plot convenience in the most obvious fashion. 

Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali are then stranded in a classically James Bond moment where the fate of one of their characters is so achingly obvious that you can’t help but roll your eyes at the doozy of a cliché. At the very least, that plot has an unexpected and stunning visual payoff but that doesn’t change the nature of the embarrassing obviousness of that scene. And then the film ends without a complete resolution. 

Alita Battle Angel clips along for two thirds of the movie with a tremendous plot building strong complications with genuine stakes. Then, out of the blue, one of the main characters nearly dies, Alita nearly allows them to die and then, and then… well. I would need to go into serious spoiler territory to disentangle the nonsense that leads to this wholly unsatisfying end. I will only say that this abysmal third act ruined for me what was an otherwise enthralling and thrilling action adventure sci-fi romp. 

I was genuinely bummed when the movie began to falter. I could feel my heart sinking as the music of the final scene began to swell and it dawned on me that the film and these terrific characters would not have the chance to redeem themselves with a final battle sequence. Instead, I was left dispirited by a truly lame and misguided sequel tease. Ugh! Alita Battle Angel is two thirds of a really ripping adventure and one third of a bad Wachowski movie. 

(Sidebar: The Wachowski’s were the makers of The Matrix whose careers have been marked by remarkable ups like The Matrix and stunning failures such as The Matrix sequels and Jupiter Ascending. The final act of Alita sadly compares well to the worst of the output by visionary filmmakers quite similar to Wachowski’s in clout, status and popularity, Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron.) 

(Sidebar Sidebar: Yes, I know if I have to explain the funny-sad comparison it’s less funny but so be it, this parenthesized tangent is entertaining me even more than my insulting comparison.) 

(Sidebar-Sidebar-Sidebar: Then again, is a reference to the Wachowski's really so obscure that people need these sidebars? Perhaps not, but there is a lack of universality as to whether the majority of readers find a comparison to what I see as the worst of the Wachowski's, all that insulting.) 

(Si--- Okay, even I have tired of this.)