Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

[Henry88]

'Alita: Battle Angel' First Reactions Surface Online
https://comicbook.com/anime/2019/01/10/ ... ons-anime/

[Dai]

I can now exhale a sigh of relief I've been holding in for 20 years, because this movie was really good. My main concern going in turned out not to be a problem: I didn't think it was possible to cover all of the manga's first three arcs in a 2-hour movie. Turns out, it doesn't try to. This is primarily an adaptation of the hunter-warrior and Hugo arcs; some motorball is thrown in for flavour and to provide one of the movie's best action scenes, but it doesn't try to cover that whole part of the story.

The most obvious change from the manga is that all of the overt philosophy has been removed. The other major change is tonal. While this is still a brutal story at times, character motivations are made more relatable, and some of the hard edges are sanded down. For example:



The Alita manga was a world full of characters who never compromised on what they wanted, often until it destroyed them. The movie, despite Rodriguez stepping into the director's chair, has James Cameron's fingerprints all over the script. That means more sentimental, humane relationships, and a more traditional Hollywood romance arc than the messy, selfish desires presented in the manga. I won't call this a flaw, since it does give the movie a strong emotional core, but it is a very different perspective compared to the original, even though it does lead to the same end.

Those hoping this would be a completely self-contained story may be disappointed on that front. I was surprised to see Desty Nova make an appearance (and even more to see a familiar face in the role), and he's very much set up as the potential main villain for a sequel. The movie does give the viewer a clear idea of the trajectory Alita's life would take after this story though, so the ending doesn't really count as a cliffhanger.

My only real complaint is that the story's seams show in places. Particularly in the first hour, the structural editing can throw the pace off on occassion. It's nothing major, but a noticeable artefact of the many threads this story pulls together. Of course, some of that could be down to me comparing it to the structure of the manga and anime versions. A new viewer might not find fault with how the movie is constructed.

Overall, this is a highly entertaining slice of cyberpunk, where both Rodriguez and Cameron bring their personal strengths to the table. I hope it does good enough business to greenlight a sequel, but I don't know if its action is flashy or excessive enough to woo modern audiences used to larger-scale conflicts than the personal battles presented here.

[Gargantuan Gargantua]

I see this Friday. When I bought the tickets nobody had bought seats yet so I picked what I wanted. Of course I bought a 12:30 pm showing on a Friday so... Heres hoping my dad and I are the only ones there so I can nag them to turn the surround sound up for me. =)

[Dai]

Some more thoughts, now that I've mulled over the movie.



Another significant change from the manga is the nature of the threat posed by The Factory and Zalem. The movie makes the conflicts more direct and specifically motivated, whereas the world of the manga often killed people through callous indifference.

[Gargantuan Gargantua]

I just saw it and liked it a lot even though some stuff involving Hugo was a bit much... Never read the manga, I only saw the 60 minute anime that I had from years ago.

I can say it is probably the best Anime adaptation ever. I think it is getting criticized a little harshly. I'd say maybe the way scenes get pieced together sometimes happen abruptly and the dialogue can be a tad cliche but what ya gona do.

I doubt I'll go back to seeing it in theaters but I'll buy it on BluRay.

7/10

[Benjamin Haines]

I saw Alita: Battle Angel last night and it rocked! It's a very fast-paced movie that's packed with plot and world-building but it's rooted in heart and carried by a fantastic mo-cap performance from Rosa Salazar as Alita. The supporting cast is stacked with top-tier talent like Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali and it was cool to see Jeff Fahey pop up as the hunter-warrior with the robotic dogs.

Compared to some other recent Hollywood cyberpunk adaptations, it's as if they took the most interesting parts of Ghost in the Shell (an amnesiac female cyborg) and Ready Player One (people living in a technologically advanced but heavily classist society in a dystopian future) and built a much better, more dynamic movie around those elements. I enjoyed both Ghost in the Shell and Ready Player One when I watched them but they're not movies that I feel compelled to ever see again, whereas Alita: Battle Angel is a film I'd like to own and rewatch in the future.

[lhb412]

Loved this flick. Savage action, cool designs, interesting world, loveable characters, and did I mention how great the action was?

It's crazy that superhero movies have become the dominant pop culture Force yet the action sequences in them are often the least interesting parts of the movie, lacking the intensity that great comic book battles can give you. Alita, as well as Spider-Verse, go a long way to correct that!

[Benjamin Haines]

‘Alita: Battle Angel’ Star Rosa Salazar on Transforming Into a Digital Cyborg Character [Interview]

[william newell]

Just got back from seeing this for the second time, and boy, is this a fun flick! Best live action anime yet, in my opinion. Can't wait for the Bluray!

[mr.negativity]

[lhb412]

^ Hell, yeah!

I'll be seeing it a second time today, IMAX!

[sentaison]

Watched it yesterday and loved it! A well done mash up of the first few storylines of the manga, with the inevitable changes that always happen from print to film. It's definitely going into my library when the blu ray is released. I would love to see the direction they take the story if they do a sequel.

[jellydonut25]

This was...fine.

I was mostly entertained but the second act didn't do enough to unspool some of the backstory required to make me care about the larger story as a whole. As a result, the third act is an anti-climactic, rushed bit of clunkery that crams in SO much it feels like there's a FOURTH act also.

It certainly doesn't help that one of the emotional centers of the movie, Hugo, was so grating to me I couldn't stand him or any time he was even on-screen. I hated both the actor and the character, and I think most of what was done with him was such a massive miscalculation it nearly torpedoed the entire experience for me. I never read the manga, but reading the spoilers about how he's treated there vs here kinda makes sense then that I hated him and his redemption moments felt really unearned and I just wanted him to not be in the movie anymore.

Ultimately, there was enough for me to have fun with it, but I don't know that I'd ever want to revisit it. The character and performance of Alita are charming as hell, and the goofy fun stuff like Jeff Fahey's character and tiny little Jackie Earl Haley's head on a ginormicous body are goofy and bonkers and fun...but then there's the gigantic wet fart of a character in Hugo, and the movie's utterly unsatisfying ending to sit there and drag the entire experience down for me.

3/5. I think a sequel that actually gives a satisfying conclusion would be the only way I'd ever come back to this.

[lhb412]

^ Hugo reminded me of all the garbage male role models I had as a '90s kid; imagine Jonathan Taylor Thomas in a backwards baseball cap.

To me he made perfect sense as Alita's dumbass love interest. Of course this naive child would fall for this guy!

I'm not usually one for IMAX 3D stuff, but I really dug watching the movie in this format! Makes me consider saying Godzilla this way.

[jellydonut25]

It's not that it doesn't make sense, it's that it's off-putting to see and experience. His character was a dumpster fire, and that he was attempted to be redeemed instead of saved simply because Alita values life was a major miscalculation.

[Benjamin Haines]

I agree with both of you regarding Hugo. He's a very grating character and I didn't like him but I thought he was an appropriate fit for his role in the story. He's an unsympathetic douchebag who is totally unworthy of the girl who has fallen in love with him, and while he does eventually recognize the error of his ways, he still pays for his crimes. Hugo had been stealing body parts from cyborgs and he ends up spending the last day of his life as a disembodied head on a clunky robot body before falling to his death without ever reaching Zalem.

[lhb412]

Man, the fights in this movie were so brutal and stylish and amazing!

I'm still riding the high of this movie and Spider-Verse.

[mr.negativity]

Box Office: 'Alita' Tops $300M Overseas