Obviously this took longer than expected, given Cameron's lengthy 12 year hiatus after Titanic, and instead of Alita, put his full force behind Avatar, and eventually its upcoming sequels, again placing Alita on the back burner. Clearly Cameron wasn't going to have the free time to bring it to life as its director, and in his place, we have Mariachi-man Robert Rodriguez to take charge with Cameron's blessing, bringing Alita: Battle Angel to the screen at last. And for a story as fascinating as that, I just wish the finished film could have been so as well.
The year is 2563 in the scrapyard Iron City, where cybernetics doctor Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) discovers the remains of an advanced cyborg in the junkyard, soon repairing and resurrecting it. Reawakening as Alita (Rosa Salazar), she becomes increasingly curious of the outside world, and of discovering the memories of her forgotten past, as well as showing to be an instinctive fighter capable of defending herself. Soon her presence draws the attention of various parties, including Ido's ex-wife and rival cyber-designer Chiren (Jennifer Connolly), and crime boss and motorball fixer Vector (Mahershala Ali), as Alita attempts to piece together the mystery of her dormant memories, and find new meaning in her life.
For better and for worse, Cameron's fingerprints are all over Alita, whose vision and style Rodriguez is very faithful to, and you can especially see this in the visuals, brought to life by VFX supervisor Joe Letteri and his team at Weta. The world of Iron City is a marvel creation, a dystopian and grungy city of steampunk slums, neglected in the shadow of the wealthy overhanging city of Zalem, whose junk trickles down into the wastelands beyond Iron City's limits. It gives such an epic scale to the world of the film, towering over the viewer with the massive creations, and perfected through an obsessive amount of detail. To paraphrase Rick McCallum, it's so dense, and every image has so much going on. At times it does threaten to border on sensory overload, but the camera work is very precise in drawing your attention to the most appropriate spot, but also rewarding to the super observant, ensuring that the imagery never feels overwhelming.
But the true highlight of the visuals come in the inventive cyborg designs and motion-capture, who despite their seemingly jarring anime appearance, and with some time to adjust, are very easy to accept and buy into the illusion that the film sells you on. It's terrific character work all around, with each of the neat designs showing an insane level of personality, all through the simplest of cosmetic touches. There are those like Ed Skrein as a Hunter-Warrior bounty hunter, whose face is plastered onto a stripped down robotic body, and Jackie Earle Haley as baddie Grewishka, a hulking assassin who becomes one of the main obstacles of Alita's quest, built with murderous razor chain fingers.
But the real heart of the film comes in the innocent form of Alita, a character often defined by her sweet nature. That big heart of hers isn't just metaphorical, with Dr. Ido at one point commenting that it "could power Iron City for years." That's both a blessing, and a curse. She's a curious, sweet, incredibly emotional audience surrogate, but with that optimism also comes naivete to the dangers of the world. There's always this feeling that Alita is too trusting of the world around her, as she still hasn't learned how dangerous and deceptive people can truly be, and so the film puts us firmly in her feet every step of the way, as she painstakingly makes these discoveries, soon becoming a hardened warrior with a strong moral compass. A lot of this is owed to Rosa Salazar's central performance, showing an impressive level of physicality in mo-cap, both in combat and in silent expression, and even her initially odd magnified eyes become vital defining tools.
That attachment to her character makes the film's action all the more exciting. While he clearly owes thanks to Cameron's influence, these are the moments where Rodriguez makes his personal stamp well known. Because of the detail-packed imagery, Rodriguez makes extensive use of precise camera choreography and blocking, in order to make the action as clear and comprehensible as possible. There's such a crisp sense of movement and finesse in these scenes, as Alita unleashes the full extant of her power and mobility, dancing through the air with the deadliness of a ninja, and the grace of a ballerina. These sequences prove surprisingly brutal as well, in the most obvious of Roriguezisms, as cyborgs are slashed apart in borderline grotesque fashion. You can see that effort pay off especially in the outstanding motorball sequence, where the film is at its most unabashedly fun with a Spielbergian craftsmanship.
But impressive as that technical side of the film is, the conceptual side is a lot messier in execution. As I said before, Cameron's fingerprints are all over this film, and that's not always a good thing. While he's a top notch director, Cameron is not the most skilled of writers, and the script, co-written by him and Laeta Kalogridis, showcases his usual trappings. His abundance of cheesy dialogue, the sometimes stilted way that his characters speak, and a hefty brigade of unnatural exposition. It seems his Avatar sensibilities also followed him here, as evidenced by the aforementioned mileage between Iron City and Zalem, and highlighted even further in dialogue, with Vector proclaiming he'd rather rule Hell than scrounge in Heaven. A solid line of dialogue, but the film isn't totally committed in keeping that environmental touch up the whole movie, as the greater impacts tend to get lost in the razzle-dazzle, and so the film often feels murky in its build.
The characters themselves also deliver mixed results in that regard. Christoph Waltz is incredibly effective as Alita's father figure, burdened by personal heartbreak and grief before the events of the film, and proving a nice change of pace for the usually typecast villain actor. On the other hand, Jennifer Connolly walks a very uneven line between her more tragic and conflicted emotional side, and the sinister opportunism of a mad scientist. Mahershala Ali at least looks to be having fun, despite a recurring personality switch (it makes more sense in context) that barely taps the potential that such a plot point offers. On top of that, we also have Keeann Johnson as Alita's love interest, who isn't done any favors bearing the brunt of the film's cheesy dialogue, and brings less chemistry to the table than Salazar does.
But above all, I'm not a fan of how incomplete this movie feels. Alita very clearly wants to build a franchise out of itself, planting seeds for the future as it progresses, at the expense of feeling like its own satisfactory solo chapter. Zalem is constantly name dropped for example, but never once do we actually get to see what it's like, only given the barest descriptions, and characters remarking that no one in Iron City ever goes there. As such, the film feels so preoccupied with the things it's going to do, it didn't stop to consider what it could have done with this entry, and so feels like a long bridge to better things to come, leaving several threads dangling waiting for a follow-up, and depending on the box office performance, that could blow up in their faces. Even if it doesn't, it still won't change the fact that the film could have easily done more with itself, and wouldn't have dragged its way across the finish line. I also get the feeling I may have enjoyed the movie more as a fan, rather than coming into it blind like I did.
All in all, I still enjoyed my time with Alita: Battle Angel. It's a messy film in several regards, and I'm not sure even Cameron in the director's chair would have elevated it, but for what it promises (and compared to some of the mediocre stuff I've seen recently), it's a harmless movie. It has all the dazzle, thrills, and brutality to entertain you, and just enough well-realized material to keep you engaged. However, it could have been much more.
*** / *****
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