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

The Ido Inconsistency

From the moment that Dr. Dyson Ido, an intriguing yet empty character, meets Alita, he looks out for her, treats her like a human being (commensurate conduct in a world filled with cyborgs), and as a member of his extended family. Ido completely contradicts that conduct and sentiment in the second and third acts of film when it comes to Alita and Motorball. In the first act of Alita: Battle Angel, Dr. Ido tells Alita to stay inside his home at night because of body-part thieves and murderers roaming the streets. That makes sense, he cares about Alita. So when Alita says she is going to enter a Motorball tryout, he says absolutely nothing? No objection? Not only that, he helps her? This is nonsensical. So he doesn’t want her walking the streets at night because of possible threats but he is amiable and encouraging of her taking part in a gladiatorial game where the contestants are routinely ripped apart and destroyed? It’s a narrative non-sequitur. It’s like editor Stephen E. Rivkin cut a scene out of the film that explained Ido’s change in thinking. This scene gap and atypical choice by Ido, during a turning point in Alita’s life, is detrimental to the film and glaring to the point of a siren going off.

The Ending

Alita trying to get to Zalem through Motorball at the conclusion of Alita: Battle Angel is an idiotic plot point. Even if she wins, it doesn’t mean Nova (Edward Norton) will allow her to ascend to Zalem. Nova can just pay someone to kill her, blow-up the transport bringing her to Zalem (“Oops. Malfunction.”), or bomb the city block Dr. Ido’s lab is located on while Alita is asleep. Why doesn’t Alita try to fix the downed United Republics of Mars (URM) ship and fly it to Zalem? It would take years, maybe decades, but she is a cyborg. She has the time. She would have better luck with the URM ship (which still has power after three hundred years, denoting the resilience of URM tech) than relying on the Motorball tradition of the victor getting to go to Zalem.

Getting to Zalem By Becoming Motorball’s New Champion is an unthoughtout plot-point. Ending Alita: Battle Angel on such an inscrutable note is a disservice to all the good plot-points that came before it.

As the end-credits begin rolling on this film, the viewer realizes how great Alita: Battle Angel could have been and how far from it the film truly is through terrible choices in the film’s script.

Rating: 6/10

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