Alita: Battle Angel

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Ami-Scythe's Avatar
A bucket of anxiety
"Alita" is a demo reel for mo-cap (motion capture) that misses its every opportunity to be interesting.

The movie is based on a manga of the same name, one I did a quick read about on Wikipedia. Basically, it is about a cyborg in the 26th century with amnesia and a body of recycled parts who uses her one memory of being a skilled martial artist to work as a bounty hunter and plays sports in her spare time.
It worried me because the manga seemed to be entirely character driven and I had a hunch that the characters would not have the charisma they needed. I was right.

Alita is nothing more than an inconsistently written model. In the beginning, she's presented as the cute and innocent anime girl trope. Then on the flip of a dime, she's edgy and rebellious. There is almost no transition. She does what the plot demands and I didn't believe in any of the decisions she made.
I didn't even find her fight scenes believable. She's pretty but her physics are atrocious. The way Alita moves compared to the actors is so uncanny it takes you out of the experience. She's a machine of around 200 lbs and she moves like a helium balloon.
The supporting characters are bland and forgettable, to the point I can hardly remember their names and the villains were laughable Spy Kids rejects.

But my main problem with Alita as a character is that she makes for a terrible action hero. Despite her distracting weightlessness, her actions scenes were a lot of fun to watch but at the same time, I never feared for her character. It was established very early on that she's basically indestructible and that is the perfect recipe for a boring protagonist. Then, the one battle that had some real stakes to it and could possibly result in failure is the one you don't get to see.

This movie isn't all bad. There's amazing artwork, disturbing imagery, and genuinely funny lines and scenes. It is what's odd about the film. There's so much going for it and it does nothing.
What I mean by this is that it has a lot of interesting ideas that aren't touched on. For example, there's an establishment that guns in this century are outlawed. So I figured the majority of the sparring would be medieval like, but with robots. Nope! There's only two swords throughout this 2 hour long feature.
Another example is how it reminded my fiance of an 80's action film. It doesn't do anything an 80s action film would do, not even a final kick a** battle!
I would mention more but I don't want to go into spoiler territory and I'll be talking about this more on my youtube channel (Ami Scythe) in May.

Overall, I think it's okay. There's very little I enjoyed and I don't think the fun bits of it are worth the money, but strangely, I wouldn't recommend not seeing it. Hopefully it shows up on Netflix.
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Ami-Scythe



So sorry Ami -going to a Manga based movie ought to have been a hunch of what's in store for you. For me on the other hand, I LOVED IT! ha.
Alita rocked my world all the way down to that tiny waist. A beautiful love story and epic battle scenes left me hangin' by a thread, and wanting more...(any movie that offers REAL escapism where you forget about you and the rest of the audience in the theatre is worth the money in my book.)
Perhaps look deeper...after all Avatar had plenty of meat on the bone. The fun for me was the world rather than the characters, being a sci-fi geek. Nevertheless, I found elements of sociological relevency in dealing with being on the brink of humanity succumbing to nefarious forces and pushing the limits of technology yet struggling to not loosing our humanity. I was disappointed that Alitas heart throb (what's his name?) was lost to cyborg tech.. My guess is she'll need him / it in the sequel tho. Can't wait! After all Ass kickin' is what Manga is all about.



As a huge fan of the original manga, I loved the movie. However I have the impression that being acquainted with the source material is required for full enjoyment of this movie. Despite being a blockbuster movie it was apparently made for the fans of the comics.

Also, I find that the movie's pacing is too fast as it does not allow for full atmospheric buildup and the movie's villain is an artificial insertion on the manga's story (which did not have a villain) that reduces the emotional impact of the ending to do sequel set up.

Overall, though, despite these flaws, I think that this movie is the best blockbuster movie released by a major Hollywood studio over the past decade. Even better than Mad Max Fury Road. The reason is that this movie has so much emotion packed in it: Rosa Salazar delivers the performance of a lifetime while most other actors are great in the movie, except the boyfriend character, Hugo, which is played by some random actor nobody heard about. Besides, the special effects are amazing, the action scenes sent shivers down my spine, and the set design and worldbuilding is truly marvelous. I want the sequels for this!



I was pleasantly surprised by this film. Much better than expected. I do feel the love story was meh at best but other than that, totally invested
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Didn't read the manga but enjoyed the movie nonetheless. I don't think it's necessary for one to have to read the manga first to enjoy what's going on as I didn't. The same can be said for Ghost in the Shell.



I saw the trailer and this will possibly sound shallow but I just could not get over the eyes. They look ridiculous!!!
Liked the 90s OVA though.