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Alita: Battle Angel Review

Alita: Battle Angel Review

Posted on 09 Feb 2019

James Cameron's big-screen Alita adaptation was announced 16 years ago, much to the delight of the story's many fans. It's been a long and arduous wait, but finally, thanks to Director Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror, Sin City), Alita has finally arrived. 

For those new to the series, a brief overview; set on a futuristic Earth 300 years after a major war, called The Fall, cyber-geneticist Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) finds the remains of a young cyborg girl in the Scrapyard. This area lies at the center of the city, and acts as the depository for all the junk discarded by the floating, saucer shaped mega-city utopia of Zalem. Finding her human brain very much alive, Ido manages to resurrect the young girl and names her Alita (played in motion-capture by Rosa Salazar). With no memory of her past, Alita begins to explore the dangerous city, and finds secrets within her new home as well as on the streets. Furious cyborg battles, love and loss are all dealt with in this amalgamation of series creator Yukito Kishiro's impressive narrative.

The film is visually stunning, taking what Cameron achieved with Avatar and turning it up to 11. The city streets are bustling and seamless, evoking a real sense of place and danger for our heroes. Some of my favourite moments were watching Alita explore her surroundings, and being treated to appearances by many of Iron City's major landmarks. Of course the Hunter Warrior bar Kansas looks like it was ripped from the page, and several character cameos, such as Jashugan and Crimson Wind Zafal Takie on the Motorball circuit are major fanboy moments for me.

The film doesn't doggedly stick to the manga, and incorporates ideas from the Battle Angel Alita anime film from 1993 too, such as the inclusion of Chiren (Jennifer Connelly) and her ultimate fate. The Motorball arc from volume 3 is integrated more seamlessly here too, with Alita first playing the game in the streets with other youngsters, a touch I really appreciated. Desty Nova's influence (conveyed with subtle menace by Edward Norton) was certainly more overt in this stage of the story than previous iterations, but the way he saw through the eyes of other characters on the ground was a solid original idea.

What I really wanted from the film was a sense of being inside Alita's world, and thanks to the incredible work at Weta Digital, teh film succeeds handsomely. Yukito Kishiro's art has always had a hyper-kinetic style, but actually seeing it translated so faithfully onto the big screen is absolutely incredible. It's probably the first film I would look to buy on 4K when it launches, such is the rich atmosphere and detail captured within. The Motorball scenes in particular are absolutely phenomenal, and such is the quality of the work that it's easy to forget what must be at least 80% of what's on-screen is motion captured CGI. 

Unfortunately, the film hasn't grossed well at the US box office, and this could seriously damage the potential of a sequel. Almost all hope lies with China at this point, which managed to turnaround the fortunes of films such as Warcraft and Power Rangers, but it's not a great position to be in. This is a massive shame, because it's a genuinely terrific film with excellent performances, albeit with some characters very much under-utilised in their roles. 

I'd wholeheartedly recommend catching this in IMAX if you can - it almost certainly won't be coming back after its initial run. I only saw the film on a standard screen, but I may well sneak in another visit to get the full experience!

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