by Dai » Mon Feb 11, 2019 2:26 pm
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.