Alita: Battle Angel

Just so you know, I am not familiar with the original material at all. I had just seen the trailers and heard that it was based on a Japanese manga and anime that had a bit of a fanbase. Of course like any adaptation people were complaining about from the very beginning. Also, Hollywood has not had the best track record with adaptations of anime or manga. Because I never saw the original, I just went to see it as it's own stand alone movie, and that's probably why I enjoyed.

It takes place in the far future where cyborgs are the norm and some people live in a flying city while others live in the slums beneath it. There a scientist named Dyson finds and restores a fully robotic girl named Alita, but she has no memory of her previous life. She later befriends a human boy, and starts to get glimpses of her former life. the rest of the movie just follows Alita and all her adventures. From becoming a bounty hunter for other androids, helping her friend, to competing in a race, all while finding out who she is.

If that sounded like a lot, trust me, there's a lot more. The movie does not seem to have a single plot, but instead just kind of goes from one thing to another. It still has a main story of her trying to find out who she is, but sometimes it seems like it is put on the back burner for a bit while other stuff is happening. On the one hand this keeps the move interesting and leads to some fun action scenes and lets us explore the world a little. But on the other hand it does slow down the film a bit and makes it much longer than I think it needed to be. Also the characters' motivations seem to change a lot, and it can make it feel unfocused. I think it has a lot because it is trying to faithful to the manga. However, the story is not the focus, it is just an excuse to show some cool action and visuals.

As I said I am not familiar with the source material, but from the little bits I have scene of it I think the film is visually faithful to it. The world and the characters all have unique designs that are familiar to other movies while also having it's own style. the android designs, especially, are very creative and have a lot of character. Also, I know a lot of people complained about the main character's big anime looking eyes, but they not that bad. There not too distracting and after a while you forget about them.

The visuals also lead to a lot of fun action scenes. Even though the movie is PG13, because they are all robots it manages to get away with a lot of creative kills. Also, because it is CGI it leads allows the fight scenes to be fast and big. With the action like that, it is definitely from an anime.

While the story can be unfocused at times, Alita: Battle Angle is still a fun and visually appealing sci/fi action movie that gives all the robot action you could want. If you are a fan of that stuff then I'd say go check it out.

I give it 3.5/5