A technically advanced creature has been in stasis for hundreds of years and when it eventually awakens it doesn’t know who they are or remember anything about themselves including their name! As the film goes on the creature tries to discover who they are and where they come from. Alita: Battle Angel is the long-awaited Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron's adaptation of Yukito Kishiro's manga series where we watched cyborgs fighting other cyborgs in a dystopian sci-fi world.
We meet cyber-surgeon Doctor Ido who discovers the creature in a junkyard which is full of debris left over from the war, known as The Fall, which took place 300 years before the events of this film. The war left Iron City as a dystopia which is overshadowed and below the floating city which citizens of Iron City dream of going up to and frequently bargain to gain access to the city above which we see mentioned throughout.
Ido finds the living core of a young cyborg woman with a human brain in the junkyard. Ido takes her back to his surgery and performs repairs, by giving her a new body. Once she wakes, she can't remember anything about who she is. As a result, Ido, gives her the name Alita which happens to be the name of his dead daughter along with the body he created for his daughter before she died. We later find out that Alita is an expert in the now extinct martial art, Panzer Kunst, which was last seen in the war, which makes Alita over 300 years old.
The film involves a mixture of live-action and CGI which makes the outcome beautiful to watch. We get to see the many layers of the complex world throughout this film. Alita's action sequences are some of the highlights during this film; once she gets into a life or death situation, we get to witness her strength and power whilst fighting.
Alita isn't the only cyborg we get to meet in this film, we meet Hunter Warriors, who are bounty hunters that stand in for the police and compete with each other to kill the next target as soon as a price is put on their head. Along with the Hunter Warriors, there are hench-cyborgs working for the manipulative, Vector. The hench-cyborgs have human faces on metal skeletons with extendable arms and legs. These creatures look really believable and realistic. As mentioned throughout, the CGI and the look of everything was amazing and really believable, except the design and look of Alita is questionable. All the cyborgs look realistic and like the actor who is playing that part, yet Alita looks the most like a manga character with those huge eyes, yet you don't see that anywhere else in the film so why did they decide to do that to just that one character??
Alita isn't just an extinct warrior but finds love with human male Hugo, which creates really sweet moments throughout. Their relationship can be awkward at times, but it fits with their characters as both characters are young; this relationship creates tear-jerking moments as the chemistry is strong with these characters and you believe they really do have feelings for each other. However, at times these moments can be overplayed too and can be a bit too intense and almost cringy.
The plot is really confusing with this film as there are multiple plots and subplots happening. Alita is trying to find out who she is but also standing up to a corrupt organisation, with the subplot of the deadly sport Motorball which is mentioned throughout. Along with these plots we had very complex characters who kept holding information back from us and then in the end we would find the information out. At times, especially near the end it feels like this film is setting up for another film which we aren’t sure will even happen. Our main threat isn’t stopped, in the end Alita understands who she is we believe yet we are told for certain but there is no real conclusion to our story as good hasn't really achieved anything apart make themselves known to the real threat who lives in the upper/floating city.
Characters are complex which makes for great viewing as you want to know more about them however the plot isn’t clear, it keeps cutting between Alita trying to understand who she is, trying to defeat one cyborg and then going after someone and keeping the person she loves alive. As a result, so much is happening, and you become confused at what is really happening. The relationship between Alita and Hugo is sweet but also cringy at times too. This is good film, something different to watch but some elements aren’t needed or don’t make sense like the design of Alita compared to all the other characters and cyborgs. Alita: Battle Angel is an interesting film to watch but it’s not perfect.
