First off, I have to say that I was a huge fan of the Battle Angel Alita manga, but also that it's been years since I actually read it. After the Ghost in the Shell movie, I was a little wary of westernized anime/manga remakes. The trailer with the unnecessarily big-eye-CGI also kinda turned me off.
I was pleasantly surprised by how well everything worked out, though. Yes, there's a little bit of infodumping here and there; there's a lot of backstory to introduce and quite a few characters. However, I was glad to see the film didn't pull any punches. The manga had a huge range of pure joy and harsh grittiness, the movie does as well. The character progressions feel fairly natural and understandable, although it is a bit rushed - they were definitely trying to cram a lot of the story into the runtime.
The result is that, as a standalone movie, it glosses over things, including some characters. Some characters may feel strongly about one thing and then change their mind after a single scene when they probably should have been given more screentime to develop into it. It makes the characters seem fickle. It only has a short time to touch on major aspects of the story like the city, Alita's past, hunter-warriors, bounties, motorball, gang crime, corruption, and so on, so none of it has time to really hit home before moving onto the next "thing". Every time there's a big "reveal" we barely have time to think about it before jumping to the next "thing".
The action scenes, however, are great. Sometimes they get a little messy, but the one-on-one scenes are amazing and well-choreographed.
Oddly enough, I felt Christoph Waltz's performance was lacking. I've always liked him in all his other films, I just felt like his character was lacking in passion for things that he should be feeling strongly about. Everyone else is great though. Rosa Salazar is a perfect fit for Alita, and Mahershala Ali makes a surprisingly good double-performance.
Lastly, the sequel hook. The film simply feels... incomplete. Which, for a manga adaptation, I can forgive because they barely covered 1/5th of what happened in the manga. But as a standalone movie, it just feels like it ended out of nowhere. I really do hope it gets a sequel (possibly a trilogy), but at the same time, as a standalone, the movie feels like they suddenly realized they couldn't make it any longer and just decided to cut it off there.
Overall, 7/10. Worth watching for sure, but is far from perfect. Most of the problems stem from trying to cram too much story into a short time. I still can't figure out why they CGI'd her eyes like that.
Great manga adaptation, good standalone movie
First off, I have to say that I was a huge fan of the Battle Angel Alita manga, but also that it's been years since I actually read it. After the Ghost in the Shell movie, I was a little wary of westernized anime/manga remakes. The trailer with the unnecessarily big-eye-CGI also kinda turned me off.
I was pleasantly surprised by how well everything worked out, though. Yes, there's a little bit of infodumping here and there; there's a lot of backstory to introduce and quite a few characters. However, I was glad to see the film didn't pull any punches. The manga had a huge range of pure joy and harsh grittiness, the movie does as well. The character progressions feel fairly natural and understandable, although it is a bit rushed - they were definitely trying to cram a lot of the story into the runtime.
The result is that, as a standalone movie, it glosses over things, including some characters. Some characters may feel strongly about one thing and then change their mind after a single scene when they probably should have been given more screentime to develop into it. It makes the characters seem fickle. It only has a short time to touch on major aspects of the story like the city, Alita's past, hunter-warriors, bounties, motorball, gang crime, corruption, and so on, so none of it has time to really hit home before moving onto the next "thing". Every time there's a big "reveal" we barely have time to think about it before jumping to the next "thing".
The action scenes, however, are great. Sometimes they get a little messy, but the one-on-one scenes are amazing and well-choreographed.
Oddly enough, I felt Christoph Waltz's performance was lacking. I've always liked him in all his other films, I just felt like his character was lacking in passion for things that he should be feeling strongly about. Everyone else is great though. Rosa Salazar is a perfect fit for Alita, and Mahershala Ali makes a surprisingly good double-performance.
Lastly, the sequel hook. The film simply feels... incomplete. Which, for a manga adaptation, I can forgive because they barely covered 1/5th of what happened in the manga. But as a standalone movie, it just feels like it ended out of nowhere. I really do hope it gets a sequel (possibly a trilogy), but at the same time, as a standalone, the movie feels like they suddenly realized they couldn't make it any longer and just decided to cut it off there.
Overall, 7/10. Worth watching for sure, but is far from perfect. Most of the problems stem from trying to cram too much story into a short time. I still can't figure out why they CGI'd her eyes like that.