A New Manga Inspired CGI Adventure

Kaleidoscope’s newest is on 20th Century Fox’s & Lightstorm Entertainment’s production of “Alita: Battle Angel”.  Directed by Robert Rodriguez, the movie stars Christoph Waltz, Rosa Salazer, Mahershala Ali, Jennifer Connelly, & Keean Johnson.  Rated ‘PG-13’, it has a running time of 2 hr., 2 min. 

The film opens with Dr. Dyson Ido (Waltz) searching thru trash in Iron City that has accumulated from the debris discarded from the wealthy sky city of Zalem.  It is the 26th century, 300 years after ‘The Fall’, or Great War, has left the Earth devastated.  As Ido scrounges, he finds a female cyborg head with a fully intact human brain.  After bringing the head back to his home/lab, he attaches it to a female cyborg body & successfully brings her to life.  He questions the cyborg, but she has no recollections of any memories.  Ido names her Alita (Salazar) after his late daughter for whom the body was originally built.  Venturing into Iron City, Alita meets Hugo (Johnson), a human for whom she builds a strong attraction.  He introduces her to the violent sport of Motorball where cyborgs race & fight to the death.  After discovering that Ido is a Hunter-Warrior, or bounty hunter, Alita follows him one night & the 2 meet up with 3 cyborg assassins.  When Ido is injured trying to fight them, Alita instinctively fights them—killing 2 & causing the other to flee.  Alita discovers that this instinct is rooted in the skill that she possesses in the ancient martial art of ‘Panzer Kunst’.  From here, the film enters Act II with Alita becoming a hunter-killer & where this leads. 

The film is another attempt by Hollywood to adapt a Manga series animation into a stirring, Americanized adaptation.  It is only partially successful much as ‘Ghost in the Shell’ was.  Rodriguez has taken the basics of the genre and loaded it with impressive fight & action scenes.  He has created the most lifelike CGI human, yet (except for the eyes, of course, altho, they’re the best up to now).  Where the adaptation falls short is in the limitations of the script by James Cameron & Laeta Kalogridis.  As previously mentioned, the screenplay is filled with exciting action, motorball, & fight sequences.  What it lacks, tho, is a compelling story.  Alita & Hugo want to be together & get to Zalem; that is pretty much it.  Although I have not read it, I am sure that Yukito Kishiro’s Manga novel series ‘Gunnm’, upon which the script is based, has much more plot than is exhibited here.  The movie is filled with banal dialogue, especially what is uttered by the evil Vector (Ali) and Ido’s ex-wife, now Vector’s squeeze, Chiren (Connelly).  Note only are these 2 characters utterly one-dimensional but so are their words & conversations.  Salazar is excellent in her CGI role of Alita.  She is sensitive, tough, determined, & loving at the appropriate times, and her face & eyes express much.  Waltz is more subdued than he has been in his supporting-actor-Oscar winning performances in ‘Inglorious Basterds’ & ‘Django Unchained’. However, he is sympathetic in his scientist/bounty hunter/father figure roles.  Johnson is effective as the human boyfriend of Alita who also harbors his own secret life as a scavenger of cyborg parts.  Everyone else plays one-dimensional, cartoonish parts that are completely predictable.  Special mention must be given to Lightstorm’s production design, makeup, art, special & visual effects departments.  They have created stunning visuals that are sharp & clear and rarely devolve into Zack Snyder muddiness. 

I give “Alita: Battle Angel” 2 out of 5 nuggets.  If you are a lover of visuals with little plot, this may be for you.  If you enjoy more of the latter than the former, wait for the film on HBO, TNT, or FX.