Alita: Battle Angel, directed by Robert Rodriguez with a screenplay written by James Cameron, was released to theaters Feb. 14.
The movie is based on a Japanese cyberpunk manga called Battle Angel Alita, and, as we all know, live-action western movie manga adaptations always end up great, don’t they?
In 2000, the original idea for the movie was brought to the attention of Cameron, director of The Terminator, Titanic and other movies that seem to print money, by Guillermo del Toro, director of Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water.
Cameron began working on the script and said in various interviews that it would be his next film after his Dark Angel TV series ended in January 2005.
Then came the delays.
The movie was delayed due to Cameron working on another project called Project 880, which would later become the box office hit Avatar. Cameron then stated in 2008 Alita would be the second of two trilogies he was planning, the first of which being an Avatar trilogy.
In 2009, he said the script was complete, and in 2010, he said Alita was still on his radar, but he wasn’t going to do anything anytime soon with it.
In 2011, Cameron said he was going to make two more Avatar sequels before making Alita. Meanwhile, the script for Alita sat, collecting dust as tears ran down its cover page, wondering if Cameron would give her any attention again.
Finally, Cameron set the date for production to begin in 2017 with Rodriguez, whose other directing credits include Spy Kids and Sin City.
Now, you may be thinking, “Oh Paul, you ridiculous gander, so what if the movie got delayed? That only means that the technology was able to advance enough to make this special effects-heavy movie actually look good,” and I would somewhat agree with you. But this movie.
Oh boy. This movie.
This is a public service announcement to all filmmakers who make live-action manga adaptations—do not, and I repeat, do not give your main characters big anime eyes, especially if that character is supposed to have a pretty face. Just please don’t subject me or anyone else to those eyes again.
This movie is a trainwreck.
The first act of the movie is the most forced story I have ever seen in my life.
They have the characters constantly explaining things to “Alita,” which makes sense due to her not having any memories, but there are some points when Alita says nothing and the characters are vomiting exposition like there is no tomorrow.
The character arcs are sudden and don’t have any subtlety to them, and some of the choices that characters make are just plain dumb.
Maybe the writing could have been saved if any of the performances were good, but they weren’t.
One of the main characters was played by Christoph Waltz, and he really phoned in his role. There was so much emotional potential with his character, but it was all lost due to Waltz seemingly not caring.
Rosa Salazar, the main actress who played “Alita,” had an average and stiff performance. I hesitate to blame her because I feel like most of her acting was held back by her MASSIVE EYES.
Mahershala Ali plays one of the villains in the movie, and he was actually solid with a intimidating performance.
Alita: Battle Angel is a laughable mess with no real redeeming qualities about it other than that you can laugh at the rough effects, poor acting and horrendous dialogue.
This angel has fallen from grace.
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