{"id":1480,"date":"2019-03-26T15:51:21","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T15:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2022-07-21T15:51:46","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T15:51:46","slug":"alita-battle-angel-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/26\/alita-battle-angel-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Alita: Battle Angel (2019) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Rosa Salazar in Alita: Battle Angel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Robert Rodriguez has had some great and successful creative partnerships throughout his career: Quentin Tarantino on Grindhouse <\/em>and From Dusk Till Dawn, <\/em>Frank Miller on Sin City<\/em>, Ethan Maniquison on Machete. <\/em>It seemed to be a sure thing that his latest team-up with James Cameron would be just as saliva inducing and worthy of a geek freak-out as his past collaborative efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, that isn\u2019t the case with Alita: Battle Angel, <\/em>a frustratingly unfocused and lifeless effort from two of the most groundbreaking and audacious genre filmmakers working today. Instead of drawing upon director Rodriguez\u2019s and producer\/cowriter Cameron\u2019s greatest strengths, the film instead comes off as a somewhat dispassionate culmination of their aesthetics. While there are obvious touches that come from both filmmakers, they are only surface-level (fantastic effects, clever angles, well-executed action) and never reach the heart of what makes their greatest work so memorable (humor, developed and full character relationships, direct and condensed storylines).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title character is a female cyborg that is found in a\njunk heap by a good-hearted scientist (Christoph Waltz). After she is\nreactivated, she has no memory of her past life but quickly discovers she can\neffortlessly kick ass while simultaneously falling for the blandest jackass one\ncould imagine (portrayed by Keean Johnson). Alita then becomes a Hunter-Warrior\nalong with Waltz, hunting criminal cyborgs for money. With her stunning\nabilities, she then starts competing in a 3D-friendly futuristic game called\nMotorball. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, she also has sporadic bouts of memory\nrelapses where she recalls being a war veteran, and she is also trying to\nfigure out how to get to an oppressive authority that ominously hovers over the\ncity in which she dwells. I\u2019m pretty sure I left out about a dozen subplots,\nthere, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alita <\/em>spreads itself thin and glazes over every aspect of its cluttered story. Based on the popular manga, the movie seems more concerned with laying the foundation of a potential franchise than it does with being a singular and contained experience. Great actors (Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali) give forgettable performances and are nothing more than dressing for an admittedly gorgeous digital landscape. The character of Alita is the film\u2019s primary saving grace–a direct result of Rosa Salazar\u2019s fiery and likable portrayal of her (and in spite of the digital enhancements required for her character). While Alita exhibits enough heart and personality to win us over, it\u2019s not enough to carry the film and it\u2019s bumpy, excessive narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot of squandered potential in Alita. <\/em>The blending of Cameron and Rodriguez seems to dull both of their potency. The film is primarily comprised of stale remnants of their past works and feels like it was executed by a young and undisciplined fan of both filmmakers\u2014one who understands their technique but doesn\u2019t have the heart required to make it something truly remarkable. Perhaps talents as great at Cameron and Rodriguez are best left on their own, creating original works designed to please no one but themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GRADE: C+<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Rodriguez has had some great and successful creative partnerships throughout his career: Quentin Tarantino on Grindhouse and From Dusk Till Dawn, Frank Miller on Sin City, Ethan Maniquison on Machete. It seemed to be a sure thing that his latest team-up with James Cameron would be just as saliva inducing and worthy of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3195,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/3195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherpeoplesmovies.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}