I feel like I have been reading about a James Cameron Alita: Battle Angel script since the earliest days of my Internet scouring, bouncing from message boards to fan GeoCities. AintItCool was publishing leaks for Attack of the Clones, as well as near-constant updates for this latest, secret work from the mind behind Aliens and The Abyss.
You would think that after twenty years of development and working on it, it would at least be a decent script.
I walked into Alita: Battle Angel, the latest from Austin-based director Robert Rodriguez and up-and-comer James Cameron, who took a break from four Avatar sequels to do the press junkets for this movie, and I was excited, plopped into the best seat in Dallas: Dolby audio, crystal clear 3D, middle seat of the middle row.
And, yes, the visuals, besides the ever-joked-about big eyes, were impressive and, on their own, nearly worth the ticket price. When matched with the fight choreography or podrace-esque “Motorball” amalgamation, it was rollicking, quickly-paced and sometimes beautiful. But as soon as the characters opened their mouths … I was flabbergasted.
The script, seemingly long-gestating on Cameron’s hard drive, speaks slowly, deliberately and if a teenager had just watched Blade Runner for the first time. What is promised by the filmmakers (indeed, doubled down on during the thirty minute “bonus feature” that played after the credits rolled) as necessary during the #MeToo movement is anything but. Where the filmmakers views their protagonist as a new feminist icon, joining Cameron characters of Ripley and Sara Connor in the pantheon of strong female characters, she falls way short, pushed down along the way by her male co-stars.
It doesn’t help that Alita is forced into an unnecessary romance, literally moments after she first wakes up. After bumping into the first age-appropriate man she can meet, the romance evolves so quickly that, by the time a pivotal moment where the robo-girl literally has her heart in her hands, it seems overwrought, creepy and unnecessary.
Each scene reminds me of a different movie and a different scene, which did it better, earlier and with more emotion. The Matrix, Serenity, … all better examples of what was being attempted and all more worth your time.
The film is sometimes inexplicably gory: beheadings, people cut clean in two, instances where the director hints at the implications of body horror … but they are used sporadically, ineffectually and make me wonder who this movie is really for. I don’t think kids are the target demo, big bug eyes be damned.
I remember watching Robert Rodriguez documentaries where he boasted about his “Machete” filmmaking style, using the streets of Austin as a guide and a way to stymy costs. But his cheap-looking, glossy world of Iron City lacks either the charm of, say, The Fifth Element or the grit of Blade Runner’s 2019 Los Angeles. The end result is a sometimes cheap looking, half-rendered world that is supposed to be exciting and fresh.
The cast remains consistent, with Christoph Waltz doing the best he can with on-screen scene partners comprised of a nurse who literally goes nearly the entire movie without anything but a smile, and a CG creation. It makes me feel for his weeks on set. Maershala Ali also really gives it his all, effectively playing dual roles opposite the always great Jennifer Connelly, who is aggressively underused in the narrative (and then discarded equally aggressively). And, of course, the true star of the movie, Alita herself (played by Rosa Salazar) is very good and I only wish she was given a chance to truly perform and shine beyond the barriers of dots on her face.
Countless times during the two-hour runtime, I was beside myself with the terrible choices that the filmmakers made, both in terms of plot and scripting. What could have been a fun, empowering ride through a bustling post-apocalyptic world, turned into a boring, dry set-up to a sequel that will probably never happen.
