Film Review: ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (2019): A Movie of Moments Undermined By its Own Content (And lack thereof)

Alita Battle Angel Review

Alita: Battle Angel (2019) Film Review, a movie directed by Robert Rodriguez, and starring Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, Keean Johnson, Eiza González, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Casper Van Dien, Lana Condor, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Marko Zaror, Elle LaMont, Edward Norton, and Idara Victor.

Alita: Battle Angel is a film with a satisfying first act, a second act that ends with a galvanizing battle, and haphazard third act that degrades and makes paltry all that came before it. Because of this fact, it is difficult to recommend Alita: Battle Angel. In the end, Alita: Battle Angel is an entertaining film strewn with massive wasted opportunities i.e. missing scenes and moments that could have made the film a great science fiction drama and a must-see cinematic experience that delivers a gut punch instead of what is actually levied – a quick, feather-light jab that leaves no impact.

The sections of this review and analysis:

• Dialogue Sophistication and Incomplete World Building
• The Best Fight
• The Love Story and Cybernetics
• Descent from Average to Below Average
• Hugo’s Decapitation
• Going to Zalem
• The Ido Inconsistency
• The Ending

Dialogue Sophistication and Incomplete World Building

There were instances of good, simplified dialogue in Alita: Battle Angel that simultaneously answer a multitude of questions. One such moment is when Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) explains to Ninety-Nine / Alita (Rosa Salazar) that the floating sky city of Zalem was possible due of engineering. That single line of dialogue says everything that is needed.

That level of dialogue and plotting sophistication is completely absent when it comes to other key aspects of the world characters inhabit in Alita: Battle Angel. There is no overarching government structure in the film and the street-level one is only concerned with identified murderers.  No work has been put into the regular law and order aspects of the world (like in Dredd) by screenwriters James Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis. In Alita: Battle Angel‘s world, there is no 911, no police, no FBI, no marshal law, no aldermen, mayors, or governors. In Alita: Battle Angel, there is only a nightmare version of the Wild West where you can do as you please without repercussion except murder (unless you do it where no cameras are present).

It is in this environment that somehow people and cyborgs walk around care-free, under the preposterous illusion of law and order due to the presence of myopic and meager Hunter / Warriors. In effect, 2563 is a technology-rich medieval time period.

Because of this story-setting, Zapan (Ed Skrein) killing an innocent cyborg as a pretext to hunt down and kill Hugo (Keean Johnson) is an absurd contrivance. Why do you need a pretext when you live in a world with no police officers, no police detectives, and no prisons? Why not just kill Hugo out of sight of the surveillance cameras (and who is minding those cameras? It’s never disclosed in the film.) and then dispose of the body? Or leave the body in an alley for Alita to find.

Why all the artifice? Why all the machinations in a screenplay that paints such a vastly incomplete world? It isn’t necessary.

The Best Fight

The best fight scene in Alita: Battle Angel is the second confrontation between Alita and Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley). All the other fight scenes in Alita: Battle Angel pale in comparison to this one. It is the most violent fight in the film, the F-bomb is dropped in a rather effective manner, and Alita almost dies. Unlike all the other combat scenes in the film, there are real stakes during this particular battle. Alita is not invincible during this fight as she is in the third act of the film. The odds are even between Alita and Grewishka, she can die, and almost does as she unflinching throws herself, body and soul, into the jaws of a lion, and is literally ripped to pieces.

At no other time, besides this fight scene, does Alita face consequences for recklessly entering dangerous situations without forethought for consequences.