Set in the dystopian future, Dr Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) finds the remains of a cyborg. He uses the remains to revive the cyborg, giving it the name Alita (Rosa Sazalar). However, Alita is not ordinary cyborg as she’s programmed with a fighting style long since assumed dead. Learning this, Alita goes on a quest to find her true identity.
Live action anime adaptations have had a pretty rough ride of late. Death Note was so despised the vile bile directed at director Adam Wingard forced him off Twitter and Ghost in the Shell was embroiled in a scandal where it was criticised for white washing its central character. Apart from that controversy, Ghost in the Shell simply just exists in a world where bang on average movies go to die. It seems to be the case that the animes on which these films are based are too rich, too deep and too complex for a movie with too short of a run time to really come to grips with.
It’s a problem that plagues Alita because the two-hour run time doesn’t allow for the movie to take a breath from the breakneck speed it goes at from the get go, it doesn’t allow it to breathe life into its characters and it doesn’t allow it to build its world by providing the details that would make the Iron City feel alive. There’s a whole world to build, but even with backstory about a war, legendary bounty hunters and a Rollerball like sport we are still left wanting more.
The city is certainly a visual treat, it goes as far as the eyes can see. The ruined skyscrapers hint at a once staggering world that has now been destroyed from a deadly war, but we don’t get to look at the underbelly of the city. The Iron City is one everyone wants to escape but it doesn’t look that bad. It’s dirty but we are not given a convincing enough impression that this city is riddled with crime and plagued with poverty (the main characters can even afford to purchase a luxury item such as a chocolate bar). Films like Blade Runner did a much better job at presenting the grimy, crime riddled future we might have.
Rose Sazalar does a fine job in the lead role giving her character some heart. The earnestness and innocence of her character in the early stages of the movie is quite endearing, but, in the more dramatic moments, some of her line delivery is awkward (however that’s more down to the clunkiness of the dialogue). The supporting performance are all effective enough, Christoph Waltz’s low key, father like performance is ideal for the role and their connection is surprisingly heartfelt. However, the other supporting characters, particularly the villains, are more forgettable and the central romance is unrewarding.
The highlight is the action, which is expertly done. The film is directed by Robert Rodriguez (after James Cameron passed to work on other projects) who has always excelled at action filmmaking in his Grindhouse films and the Sin City franchise. The GCI is brilliantly done but what makes the action work is that it is not edited in a way the tones down the gore and violence. Because the violence is mostly on machines/cyborgs (or people in machines) the filmmakers can afford to be more explicit with the violence thereby avoiding cutting the sequences quickly to evade a higher rating being imposed upon it. It has the effect of avoiding the choppy look that many films of this rating have.
It may be lacking in depth, but the Alita is a passable way to spend two hours.
3/5
