Director: Robert Rodriguez
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Duration: 117 minutes
Alita: Battle Angel (DVD) – Movie Review
Battle Angel Alita might just be one of the most famous known old school mangas that made it to the West. The series revolved around a small girl, with a robotic body, who lost her memories and felt like an insignificant part of the machine that had become our world. Little did she know that she was an important piece of the puzzle that would end up becoming yet another battle for the planet. For some reason, the movie changed the name to Alita: Battle Angel, and while James Cameron had been sitting on the rights of this movie for ages now, they were finally passed to Robert Rodriguez in order to actually make a film. Sadly, the first movie wasn’t a box office hit, and truth be told, that’s a shame as this movie is truly worth watching.
We are taken many years into the future, where the Earth has been turned into a desolate wasteland, with only one big city on the surface, namely Iron City. This city basks in the shadow of Zalem, the last flying city where the elite lives carefree. Those on the surface work themselves to the bone, quite literally, to supply Zalem with all the necessary goods, in exchange for electricity, medicine and some law enforcement where needed. The surface world is cruel, but people tend to get by with whatever limited resources come their way. This brings us to Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) who takes occasional trips to the scrapyard, which is the dumping grounds beneath Zalem, where all their trash is thrown. During his last trip there, Ido finds part of a cyborg body, with a human brain, which still seems to be intact. He gives this young girl a body and a name, Alita (Rosa Salazar), giving her a new lease on life. Alita doesn’t remember a thing from her past, but it doesn’t take long before her fighting skills surface and due to her abilities she becomes a very important target for Zalem.
The flow of the movie is pretty much perfectly handled. You’ll get a proper introduction on how Alita gets used to the life in Iron City and how she evolves as a person. There’s more than enough action, be it actual fighting, or Alita discovering how everything in the city works. There’s a basic romantic plot embedded in the movie, as well as an origin story, making sure there is never a dull moment to be found. The movie has been handled with great respect for the source material, and even though many different items were crammed into this movie that spans just around two hours, it never feels like there’s too much going on to wrap your brain around it. Overall this proves to be an exquisite live-action rendition of a rather old manga series.
Rosa Salazar must have had an extra tricky time putting down her performance as Alita. While Alita is clearly a CGI animated character, Salazar acted out all the scenes with a motion detection suit on. So everything (or a lot) has actually been acted out and didn’t just get voiced. Christoph Waltz also puts down a convincing performance as the good doctor Dyson Ido, who finds Alita, brings her back to life and cares for her as if she is his own doctor. On the other side of the fence, we have Chiren, who is played by Jennifer Connelly, who also has a lot of experience under her belt, which clearly shows in this film. All other supporting or even leading roles have clearly been cast with care and respect for the source material.
The DVD edition of Alita: Battle Angel comes with hardly any extra features, but the ones that are present are very interesting. The first series of extras tell us more about the world Alita finds herself in, they tell us more about the war that occurred, and how the world currently is. Other than that, there’s a making-of sequence showing where the series comes from, which is certainly interesting, but more common practice for movies such as this.
Conclusion
Alita: Battle Angel is a delight to watch, not only because of the many special effects and CGI scenes but because this actually a great adaptation of a Manga to a live-action film. It’s quite sad that the movie didn’t enjoy a big success when it was still in theaters around the globe, but we hope the DVD and Blu-ray sales will turn the tables and allow the second movie to be made. If you’re a fan of the source material, then you’ll certainly love this live-action rendition.
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