Live-action movies based on anime have never gone over well. Most anime, including some of the more serious ones, are centered around a grand concept that doesn’t always translate immediately well into Western culture without some really clever writing. Between that and the fact that many live-action movies tend to cram a whole season’s worth of an anime series into a two-hour movie, sacrificing some the time it takes to flesh out ideas and develop characters, tends to be a recipe for disaster.
However, Alita: Battle Angel was always one of interest due to the talent circling the project. The film, based on the manga of the sort of-same name Battle Angel Alita, was a passion project for James Cameron as early as 2003, having constantly been pushed back due to Cameron’s work on Avatar and its as-of-yet unreleased sequels. Cameron co-wrote the screenplay and eventually handed off the directing duties to Robert Rodriguez, and a cast that included Academy Award winners like Christoph Waltz and Mahershala Ali were announced. So this was thought to be the anime adaptation that would finally break the trend of bad adaptations. Despite the talent involved, this couldn't be any further from the truth.
The film takes place on Earth in 2563, after a war known as “The Fall” leaving the planet in shambles. A scientist named Dr. Ido (Waltz) finds a female cyborg body and attaches it to a brain, naming her Alita (Rosa Salazar) after his daughter. After being attacked by a cyborg named Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley), Alita discovers Ido is a Hunter-Warrior (what bounty hunters are called in this time period) when he saves her, and looks to be one herself. In the meantime, she looks to stop the villainous Grewishka, and discovers a deeper plot involving the man Grewiska works for named Vector (Ali), as well as the many other villainous individuals that they’re involved with.
That is probably the most streamlined description of the plot as one could get, though it’s actually way more complicated than that. Alita introduces a ton of high-concept ideas, characters, and settings, and one never has a full understanding of what any of these ideas are. The film bounces around from setting to setting, trying to touch upon as many of the story lines from the manga as possible. It never stays too long in one setting, and for the time that it does allot to each of its scenes, there’s usually at least one period of time where the characters launch into an exposition-heavy spiel that feels very “blink and you miss it.” If one tunes out for even a moment, it’s hard to follow the rest of the movie, and even if one can fully pay attention, there’s a lot to wrap one’s ahead around.
It goes back to the aforementioned major problem that anime adaptations have - and really, any movie adaptations that try cramming multiple pieces of source material into one. While I have not actually read the manga, I’m sure that many of the ideas introduced in the Alita movie are better explained in the manga, with more time dedicated to explain who’s who and what’s going on without completely halting the action to do so. The movie sacrifices well-developed characters and concepts that the audience can understand for trying to stuff as much in as possible, and it not only causes some severe pacing issues, but a movie that’s difficult to grasp.
Because of this, there are many characters whose purpose isn’t fully understood. There’s a whole subplot involving Ido’s ex-wife, played by Jennifer Connolly, who’s now working alongside the villains, yet she still semi-regularly talks to Ido - who is not a villain - without conflict and it’s not sure if she’s meant to be a good person who’s working with the wrong people, or someone who fully went to the dark side. She’s less of an ambiguous character and more just plain confusing, especially as she serves very little purpose to the overall plot. There’s really only one line of dialogue that gives us any sort of hint of what type of person she is, and even then, it doesn’t lay all her cards out on the table.
Likewise, Alita’s love interest, Hugo, played by Keean Johnson, is an equally confusing character. A seemingly good person, he secretly works for the villainous Vector. Or at least, the movie leads us to believe it’s secret. There seems to be exchanges between Hugo and Alita where it seems to be made clear that Hugo disclosed this information to Alita, but then plays it up like it’s still something he’s hiding a moment later. And then, we’re not fully sure what Hugo's motivations are. It’s never made explicitly clear why he works for Vector, why he’s showing kindness to Alita, or what he’s looking to get out of all this, and it becomes even more puzzling as the movie progresses.
On top of all this, we’re not even fully sure who the true villains are in this entire movie until almost the end of the movie. While in hindsight, the idea is meant to be that there’s a larger plot afoot, it doesn’t translate well on screen. Vector is introduced fairly early and it almost seems crystal clear he’s the main villain of the movie. He then takes a back seat for a good chunk of the movie once Grewishka is introduced, and then it’s never fully made clear if they work together or for each other, and what the motivations of either are. And then it’s eventually revealed going into the third act that there’s someone even above them, which makes this whole plot even more puzzling.
And while we try wrapping our heads around every character’s dubious motivations, we become even more frustrated over the fact that some of the acting in this movie is borderline godawful. Salazar’s shoddy performance may be more of an issue with her corny, poorly-written dialogue, but unfortunately, she doesn’t give us a performance that one would call memorable. She seems like she’s trying, but her delivery feels a bit too melodramatic and filled with every “chosen one” and young adult cliched line one could think of. On top of that, the CGI used for her is not visually pleasing at all (with those enhanced eyes being the biggest eyesore, no pun intended). While she looks more like a human than the rest of the cyborgs, she looks more out of place than them, as it looks very clear that the final product was something added in.
Meanwhile, while I’ve never seen Keean Johnson in another movie before, judging by this, I don’t think I’d want to see him in anything else any time soon, as he turns in what’s easily the most cringe-worthy performance of the entire movie. While Salazar was trying to make the most out of bad dialogue, Johnson seems like he could be given Oscar-worthy lines and still muck it up. His delivery is incredibly hokey, he mostly whines throughout the movie, and he has zero chemistry with Salazar. Combined with the aforementioned fact that his motivations are by far some of the most confusing, he’s easily the film’s weakest link.
The supporting cast do a better job than the main two characters, though with the screenplay they’re given, they can only do so much. Haley, as well as Ed Skrein as another antagonistic cyborg named Zapan, seem like they’re having the most fun with their performances. While they don’t necessarily have dialogue that one would call well-written, they at least ham it up to give it a bit more of a campy vibe, and manage to be some of the more enjoyable performances of the movie. Waltz gives a fairly grounded performance and works well with what he’s given, and while he passes as a believable character, he’s not really given many opportunities to expand his acting chops here, and he’s clearly way more overqualified than this movie’s screenplay.
Likewise, Ali does what he can with the material he’s given. The two-time Academy Award-winner is no stranger to genre pieces himself, first becoming known as the villainous Cottonmouth in the Daredevil series. However, because he’s another character whose motivations are all over the place, his performance can only go so far. He definitely gives off a sinister vibe each time he’s on screen, so Ali succeeds there. However, since it takes so much time to establish whether or not he’s just a jerk or a flat-out villain, he is slightly frustrating to see each time he’s on screen, through no fault of Ali’s. Meanwhile, Connolly is equally frustrating, due to her own character’s questionable motivations, and she feels totally underused here, with delivery that seems flat, and lines of dialogue that one couldn’t recall even after they read it in the IMDb “Quotes” section for this movie.
The only memorable part of this movie is its action sequences. This is the one aspect where the movie thrives, and it almost would have been much better if it was just a two-hour sci-fi beat ‘em up. The movie succeeds in this aspect thanks to Robert Rodriguez’s involvement. The director thrives when it comes to highly stylized action movies, with films like Sin City, Machete, and From Dusk Till Dawn all being a blast thanks to his direction. And when this movie kicks things into high gear, it’s the one time when it’s actually fun to watch. They feel very slick, operate incredibly smooth, and can get very creative. Unfortunately, these sequences come few and far in between, and don’t appear enough to save this movie from its confusing plot and poor performances.
Alita: Battle Angel is an ambitious effort but a total misfire. While it has some great action sequences, thanks to the reliable Robert Rodriguez, just about everything else is a mess. The majority of the performances are scarier to watch than an actual horror movie, while the plot is so confusing that one may need to have the cliff notes on hand to reference throughout the film. Surely there will be a movie that will break the trend of bad anime adaptations. Unfortunately, Alita: Battle Angel is not that movie.
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