'Alita: Battle Angel' A Review

Alita: Battle Angel is a scifi action movie based on the Gunnm manga series. Five hundred years in the future after a catastrophic war called "The Fall" the Earth is devastated. In a junk yard in Iron City cybernetic surgeon Dr. Ido(Christoph Waltz) discovers a comatose amnesiac cyborg which he repairs and names after his deceased daughter, Alita(Rosa Salazar). She befriends a charming but compromised street kid Hugo(Keean Johnson) and as she begins to remember who she is she is hunted by the corrupt forces that run the city.

Although packed with some series talent- Waltz, Jennifer Connelly Mahershala Ali, and Jackie Earle Haley to name a few- the performances are almost unilaterally stilted and dull. This can mostly be put at the feet of the screenwriters as the story is incredibly convoluted and allots little to no actual time for character development, not to mention the dialogue is worse and more obvious than day-time soap operas. Salazar puts in an enthusiastic performance as Alita but it's an uphill battle she cannot surmount, perhaps if it wasn't motion capture she could do more but the terrible plotting along with the veneer of CGI she's unable to make much of an impression.

Visually the movie is impressive no real surprise from director Robert Rodriguez, unfortunately there is nothing much else to bolster it up. The world-building, crucial in a genre piece, is virtually non-existent, when there are attempts at flushing out the society and setting in which the characters inhabit it is so muddled and half-hearted it further confuses as opposed to enriching the action taking place.

Similar to last year's Ready Player One this is all sizzle no steak, eye-poping visuals with no real characters within them, a story so thin and underbaked it plays like video game cut scene from a C-list RPG.

Stream It.