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Summary:

Several centuries in the future, the abandoned Alita is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Ido, a compassionate cyber-doctor who takes the unconscious cyborg Alita to his clinic. When Alita awakens she has no memory of who she is, nor does she have any recognition of the world she finds herself in. Ido tries to shield Alita from her mysterious past while her street-smart new friend, Hugo, offers instead to help trigger her memories. A growing affection develops between the two until deadly forces come after Alita and threaten her newfound relationships.

Director:

Robert Rodriguez

Writers:

screenplay by James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis, Robert Rodriguez

based on the graphic novel series "Gunnm" by Yukito Kishiro

Cast:

• Rosa Salazar as Alita

• Christoph Waltz as Dr. Dyson Ido

• Jennifer Connelly as Chiren

• Mahershala Ali as Vector

• Edward Norton as Nova

• Ed Skrein as Zapan

• Jackie Earle Haley as Grewishka

• Keean Johnson as Hugo

• Michelle Rodriguez as Gelda

• Eiza González as Nyssiana

• Lana Condor as Koyomi

• Jorge Lendeborg Jr. as Tanji

• Idara Victor as Nurse Gerhad

• Marko Zaror as Ajakutty

• Elle LaMont as Screwhead

• Leonard Wu as Kinuba

• Casper Van Dien as Amok

Rotten Tomatoes:

Metacritic:

After Credits Scene? No

All previous official discussions can be found on

Synopsis: An action-packed story of one young woman's journey to discover the truth of who she is and her fight to change the world.

Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jackie Earle Haley, Ed Skrein, Keean Johnson, Mahershala Ali, Eiza Gonzalez, Jennifer Connelly and Michelle Rodriguez

Release Date: December 21 (U.S.), December 26 (UK)

: 51% (43 critics) with 5.7 in average

: 52/100 (18 critics)

As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie.

James Cameron, who first became interested in directing “Alita” nearly 20 years ago, co-wrote and produced the film that “Avatar” made him too busy to helm himself. It clearly benefited from his involvement, but Rodriguez was the right man for the job. He seems invigorated by the material, delivering his best film since “Sin City” and creating a fleshed-out world that’s vivid enough to make you wish you could see it through Alita’s eyes.

-: B+

Seen in IMAX and in 3D, Alita: Battle Angel is perfectly serviceable huge screen escapism. However, it doesn’t have anything like the emotional pull of Cameron’s Titanic or Avatar. It struggles as much as Alita herself to work out its own identity and ends up in a no man’s land between animation and live-action, kids’ movie and dystopian sci-fi. It concludes a little abruptly too. We will have to wait for the sequel (if there is one) to find out what really goes on in the mysterious sky-city of Zalem.

-: 2/5

Alita: Battle Angel sheds (or ignores?) any need for coherence anywhere except in what’s projected up on the screen, and actually benefits from that commitment to action. As Alita’s circumstances grow more dire, so do the consequences, pushing the limits of the film’s PG-13 rating about as far as they’ll go. The sight of the gargantuan cities is juxtaposed with individual violence as limbs are ripped from bodies, and the faster the blood gets pumping, the more galvanizing are the heights to which Alita climbs.

-

Alita: Battle Angel is a film with Imax spectacle and big effects. But for all its scale, it might end up being put on for 13-year-olds as a sleepover entertainment. It doesn’t have the grownup, challenging, complicated ideas of Ghost in the Shell. A vanilla dystopian romance.

-: 3/5

This cyborg blockbuster is a bolted-together mess.

-: 2/5

Impressive VFX and bursts of action can’t mask the fact that this is a tonally confused start for a sci-fi franchise hopeful, made up of scrap parts you’ve seen put to better use elsewhere.

-: 2/5

Rodriguez must have planned to answer these questions in a sequel, but don’t hold your breath. His film is probably too rushed, unfocused and tonally erratic to attract an audience, in which case the wait for an “Alita: Battle Angel” sequel will be even longer than the wait for an “Avatar” one.

-

Scarlett Johansson's 2017 adaptation of Ghost In The Shell covered similar cyber ground, and suffered as Alita does from a slavish devotion to the source material, a crime Rodriguez previously committed when making his Sin City films. And compared to last years riveting cyborg thriller, Upgrade, this is a crashing bore, which doesn't need a sequel, and certainly not a reboot.

-

In the end, Alita is a beautiful picture with a great protagonist in an undercooked story that is ultimately about a girl bot’s revenge over her own discarding. Her only motivation becomes getting the bad guys because of her boyfriend, and we’re meant to wait for a sequel to even get that meager payoff. Alita: Battle Angel is a movie with so much going for it, but is mostly just a shell of something even better.

-

Best enjoyed for the fun, slick action and the astonishing, super-expressive realisation of Alita herself, because elsewhere it’s cyberpunk business as usual, marred by some sloppy plotting.

-: 3/5

An overqualified cast (including Jennifer Connelly as Dr. Ido’s ex and Michelle Rodriguez in a small but important role) is mostly here to make a very silly movie seem slightly less silly, and on that front they succeed. (One of these talented actors — I won’t spoil who — also gets a death scene for the ages.) It does seem, though, like there’s some subtext missing. Alita barely considers any of the existential questions about humanity that are typically central to this kind of sci-fi film. It’s just a slick action film. That is one way, at least, it does feel like a Robert Rodriguez movie.

-

Although the story plays out in predictable ways, Rodriguez handles the combat sequences well enough as Alita’s killer skill set ramps up. But the dialogue is exposition-heavy and lumpen – especially by Cameron’s lofty standards. With none of the usual killer payoff lines or jokey moments, the more-than-solid supporting cast – including Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein and Jennifer Connolly – are stranded in earnestness. Ali and Skrein do what they can in generic bad roles, but the menace levels end up diluted by a surfeit of villains. It’s a rare thing to say about a Cameron project, but you come out feeling like you’ve seen it all before.

-: 2/5

Alita: Battle Angel is an ambitious project, one that’s been years in the making, but the end result falls short. It’s a middling sci-fi drama, fueled by clunky exposition and special effects that might look cool now but won’t hold up. The film’s only saving grace is the actual angel leading the way.

-

Written Reviews:

Alita barely considers any of the existential questions about humanity that are typically central to this kind of sci-fi film. It’s just a slick action film. That is one way, at least, it does feel like a Robert Rodriguez movie.

Alita: Battle Angel is a film with Imax spectacle and big effects. But for all its scale, it might end up being put on for 13-year-olds as a sleepover entertainment. It doesn’t have the grownup, challenging, complicated ideas of Ghost in the Shell.

Best enjoyed for the fun, slick action and the astonishing, super-expressive realisation of Alita herself, because elsewhere it’s cyberpunk business as usual, marred by some sloppy plotting.

The film is stuffed with so many plot strands and so many different genres (sports movie, YA rebellion movie, bounty-hunter movie) that it never gets moving.

As you’d expect from Rodriguez, it has a decent number of pow-wow fight scenes, and sure loves to watch machinery being ripped to shreds. But it's all uncomfortably close to the gruesome Flesh Fair from Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, revamped as an ain’t-it-cool demolition derby with a charm-and-conscience bypass.

You know, because she's basically a teenage Cyborg terminator girl 😍

Just this summer, James Cameron, Robert Rodriguez, Rosa Salazar and Jon Landau reiterated they're hell bent on getting the Alita franchise rolling again. I'm personally STOKED for it! I loved the movie. It kicked the shit out of Dark Fate. Just sayin...

There's some reservations now that Alita is disney intellectual property. Would Kathleen Kennedy "Disney-fy" it... Just like they've kinda sucked the magic out of the star wars and Marvel universe with endless streams of homogeneous offshoots.

At the same time, Cameron and crew could point to audience fatigue for star wars and MCU as reason to get Alita back in the game.

James already said he's going to be spending time in Austin with Rodriguez to get the ball rolling.

I know not a specifically terminator related post, but both universes have some similar elements. If we never get another Terminator vehicle... Alita's not a bad consolation prize IMHO.