#7: Alita: Battle Angel

I kind of liked the original working title of "Battle Angel Alita" better, but whatever.

The more I sat on this, this more I realized I was always going to see it.

I'm that person who loved "Jupiter Ascending" and "Valerian" and thought, while they had some bad elements, there was much more good in them, and they deserve sequels, damn it!

So cheesy, expensive adaptations of foreign comics and manga is clearly right up my alley. And a $4 DBOX ticket helps.

The action shines, helped extraordinarily by DBOX and fantastic, clear fight choreography.

This...is extremely dense. Heavy, intricate material. I don't know how much of the manga they put in here, how many volumes, but it ends with a clear open door for a sequel, which I really hope we get.

While some of the effects on the side characters are a little iffy (The bounty hunter after Alita especially, Ed Skrein doesn't look so bad), Alita herself (Rosa Salazar) is a marvel. The eyes are still uncanny - That's the point.

Special note; Law enforcement is now part of the gig economy. Which is kind of amazing. God knows we couldn't have that in America.

SPOILERS

Unfortunately, Mahershala Ali is kind of not needed, doing the best he can with a character that has nothing. Just like the nameless black nurse.


Alita's backstory is slowly peeled back, and it's clear she was part of much bigger plans that are never fully uncovered in the film, which I like.

Also, quite a few of the lines hit the ground with a thud. I chuckled at some OTT imagery. The ~romantic bits were truly thud-worthy.

After about an hour and 35 minutes, it felt as if things happened because it would be cool to see them, not because they mattered to the plot. Hugo abandons his trade of basically dismembering cyborgs to pay for a trip to Zalem but then he's framed for murder.

How do they know who murdered that person? Why is there a bounty on murderers when it's heavily indicated that Nova farms the people of Zalem to further his immortality? What is his role in all of this when there's still law enforcement but he harvests people?

If I could compare Alita to "Jupiter Ascending"'s lead, appropriately titled Jupiter, and "Valerian"'s Laureline, Alita feels more genuine and rounded than both of them (Even though I love them). She grows enough to learn she's not here to be a replacement for Ido's daughter (Who dies in possibly the most unclear way I have ever seen) or whatever she was, but whatever she chooses to be.

Which almost leads back to whoever she was...but if we're lucky enough to get a sequel, that's a road we can head down.