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

Hugo’s Decapitation

When Hugo is decapitated in the third act of Alita: Battle Angel, it is another instance of a dramatic scene, an emotional-wretching moment, left off-screen. This is a brilliant and horrific turn in the film’s storyline surrendered to oblivion without cause, creating a gigantic missed opportunity by the film’s screenwriters and director Robert Rodriguez.

Even Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith showed Anakin Skywalker get his legs and remaining arm cut off on-screen (while retaining the film’s PG-13 rating). It was something pivotal that happened to that film’s main character and deserved to be on-screen. It is the same with Hugo’s decapitation.

Here are all the questions that the viewer will never have answers to: Who made the decision to cut Hugo’s head off in that scene? Was it Dr. Chiren, Alita, or Hugo? Did Hugo consent to that, knowing what it meant? What was Alita’s emotional reaction to the decapitation of the person that she loved? Did Alita cry? Did she scream? Did she hold Hugo’s hand as it was happening?

The lack of this scene (and the emotional moments and decisions surrounding it) in Alita: Battle Angel is one of numerous, gaping, self-inflicted wounds that the film accumulates at an accelerating pace during its third act.

Hugo’s after-surgery, wake-up moment is the next huge scene unwritten and unfilmed in Alita: Battle Angel. Hugo wakes up after being decapitated and his human body is gone, replaced with a machine body. He is a eunuch. He will never have sex again. From the neck down he is a machine. There is no scream. No dawning horror of his new existence. No sense of loss. No emotional reaction. This things don’t happen because the wake-up moment, like many other key moments in the film, is off-screen in a script that cares more about Motorball than human drama.

There is an argument to be made that Hugo would not have emoted dawning horror at his new cyborg existence because he lived in a world filled with cyborgs and he was in love with one. The arguer could continue and say that Hugo would just think “now I am one of them,” that only in quite moments, when he was alone, would Hugo realize what he had truly lost. There is truth to that argument but either way, none of it is on-screen in the film – not the horrified Hugo reaction nor the passive and accepting one.

Instead, the film rushes the viewer into the next CGI, action set piece that contains minimal emotional undertones.

Going to Zalem

Hugo thinking that he can just waltz up to Zalem after his head transplantation is ridiculous and the laugh-out-loud moment of Alita: Battle Angel. The viewer gets it, Hugo is in shock, but his choice of destination after leaving Dr. Ido is ludicrous and suicidal. Hugo, who studied Zalem, who dreamed of Zalem, would have heard all the stories of the defensive measures present on the cables connecting Zalem to Earth. No reason is given why he believes those defensive systems aren’t still present and active. Losing his body might have caused Hugo to have a mental break and to chase the one remaining dream he had left. It is so rushed, however, that Hugo’s mental process in making his Zalem decision is left off-screen. This results in the scene’s emotional resonance being dead on arrival. The scene ends on a sad note but it also significantly misses the mark because of the missing elements leading to that moment.