Alita Battle Angel (2019)

There is a moment very early in Alita Battle Angel that sets the tone for the film. The character starts to move, the score starts to swell dramatically, and suddenly the scene cuts quickly, we're seeing a different take, and the score has suddenly switched to a mellower, quieter take. It is disjointing. It feels like someone accidentally cut out a few moments of the film. But the remainder of the film ends up following this track. Alita feels edited within an inch of its life, attempting to pack in plot points without taking time for nuance, character development, or emotional resonance.

The film, whose run time for the actual movie is kept at 2 hours (the formal run time is longer but that's because the credits go on forever), is presented so that one plot point follows the next. Each one feels abbreviated to just give us exactly what we need to know. Characters walk into scenes, explain their motivations, tell their fellow characters exactly what's going on, and then get to the action. It all feels like Alita should have been much longer and taken more time to flesh out its story, its characters, its emotional impact. Instead we are just told a story, a story that doesn't have a great punch to it, it is all details and no romance.

Even the action in Alita feels truncated. There aren't the sort of spectacular set pieces which movies like this live for. Almost every fight is only a few moments. There is one scene in the middle, a scene I imagine was meant to be a pivotal and inspiring scene, where the fight goes on for a while and involves multiple characters. Yet it still feels economic in its execution. There are fascinating seeming characters who exist on the margins who are then never utilized. Perhaps the film didn't do enough work to get us invested beyond the surface so when the metal hits the metal we just aren't as excited as we should be.

Plus the special effects are.. problematic. Despite the film using state of the art digital effects, there isn't a scene in the film where the effects don't pull you out of the movie. Alita puts all her eggs in one basket, the visual effects basket, and it shows. The effects are constantly screaming "look at me" instead of being there to tell the story.

I think there is an interesting story in here and the possibility of fascinating characters. But the film doesn't feel interested in working on that. Instead it just needs to hits its story beats quickly so we can marvel at the visual spectacle, a spectacle that actually ends up being less impactful for all its damn impressive technology.

Alita ends us on a cliffhanger of sorts but I honestly couldn't muster enough excitement to care whether or not we get chapter two.

Alita Battle Angle
Starring: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Keenan Johnson, Mahershala Ali, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earl Haley, Michelle Rodriguez, Idara Victor, Edward Norton (uncredited)
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Writers: James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis