Alita: Battle Angel

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To kick things off with this review, I have to mention that I am reviewing this from the viewpoint of a non-reader of the original material. All I know about 'Alita' is this movie. So as far as what the film cuts out, what the film changes, how well the story is adapted as a whole, I have no idea. That said, on with the review. 

The setting is a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a city, set after the events of a devastating war known as "The Fall", in 2563. Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) finds the head of a deactivated cyborg girl in a junkyard, and brings her home to bring her back to life. He names her Alita, after his recently deceased daughter.

Meanwhile, Alita (Rosa Salazar) befriends a young man named Hugo (Keean Johnson) who introduces her to the sport of Motorball, and has dreams of moving to the sky city of Zalem. While Alita becomes rather smitten with him, she also struggles to remember her past, and who she was before Ido found her.

Meanwhile still, a group of cyborgs lead by a big guy named Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley) is out to assassinate Ido, while Alita discovers that she can not only fight, but kick some serious ass. Slowly but surely, her past is unveiled, and, without spoiling anything, it all leads to a cliffhanger ending that suggests a sequel probably is well on its way.

In trying to be the new action/adventure series, setting up for a sequel can be a common mistake. It's important to remember that your new series might not take off as well as you imagine it will. It failed 'Percy Jackson', it failed 'Divergent', it can fail anything if it's just not interesting enough, or strays too far away from what the book was. Again, I'm not entirely sure how well-adapted this is, but certain things about it lead me to hope it hangs in there.

This is one of those titles that bears a modest 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for the critics, but its general audience seems to love it with a 94%, which leads me to believe that a lot of the readers of the source material are on-board for this to be successful. And hell, I'm on board too, but as a non-reader, I have my own reasons why.

To keep it basic, I liked the world that was created here, there was a lot of imagination put into the creation of the characters, and despite the love story aspect of this, I didn't feel like a love story was being crammed down my throat. It's far more about Alita's journey, and Alita herself is just plain bad ass. And if you know me well enough, you know that I enjoy a strong female lead. But let's talk about the elephant in the room and, for whatever reason, the thing people seem to be avoiding - Alita's anime eyes. Now strap in, 'cause I'm about to get a little deep.
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Her eyes do not bother me in the slightest. In fact, I quite like them. The way I see it, she's an android, so really why the hell not? It can't really fall under a racial thing, in my opinion, because she's the only one who has them. And honestly, I get the feeling she was given big eyes for a reason, and it's not JUST to look like a manga character.

A lesson I learned in illustration is that the eyes are the window to a person's soul. Alita's eyes kinda say a lot about her character, depending on her expression. Curiosity, love, appreciation, anger, rage, sadness. It's all kinda magnified in a way with her, making the viewer perhaps empathize with her a bit more. But hell, maybe it's just me. Personally though, I found her eyes to really add to her character as opposed to being the distraction that seems to be on everyone else's minds.

Speaking for myself, so far, this is my front-runner film for "favourite" of 2019. With that said, a lot can change between now and 10 months from now, so we'll see what the rest of the year has in store. But with how unique this film is, I get the feeling it's gonna remain a stand-out for yours truly.

5/5

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