I read Battle Angel: Alita back in the early nineties when the market in the west finally opened up to the wonders of Japanese sequential art story telling. Dark Horse rode the crest of the wave and translated a ton of books. I remember walking into the old Outer Limits store in Braamfontein and just browsing through all the amazing sci-fi books featuring these wide-eyed characters. I wasn’t the only one entranced by Alita and her journey to figuring who she was and why she was so deadly – James Cameron immediately bought the rights to make a film based on the manga. Unfortunately, by the time the tech caught up to his vision, he was too busy with the Avatar sequels. In stepped Robert Rodriguez who approached Cameron to take over the film and thank goodness he did.

The film follows the manga closely – Dr. Ido finds a cyborg core in a junkyard and rebuilds her. The mysterious cyborg has no memory but has unbelievable combat skills. Through her journey we learn more about Alita’s past just as she uncovers more about Dr. Ido and the truth behind the floating city of Zalem and the lower-class city, and on the ground, Iron City. While the film follows the manga as closely as possible, it does try to cram far too much story into it’s near two hour run time. We get Ido finding Alita, Alita learning about this new world (the orange scene is particularly charming), Alita falling in love and then finding out who she is and why she is so deadly. Oh yeah, there is also a love story crammed in there as well as a sub-plot involving Ido and his ex-wife, her role in the sport of Motorball with the villain of the film and finally the unveiling of the actual villain of the story.



Things move at such a pace that it feels forced, in a familiar refrain in this day of prestige TV, the film and story may have been better served by a six-hour TV series rather than a two-hour film. The central story is clear enough, but it is muddied by all the other threads. The relationship and love story between Alita and Hugo, a non-augmented human, just doesn’t ring true. Her naivete leads to their meeting, but her falling in love with him almost immediately is too convenient for the plot. His role in Alita’s awakening is also a convenient plot contrivance, he just happens to know of a place with a crashed ship that she recognises and feels drawn to. His role is simply to move the plot along.

[Rosa Salazar] brings a humanity and believability to the world, especially when she experiences things for the first time.

In the role of Alita, in an amazing motion captured performance, is Rosa Salazar, who more than makes up for the plot contrivances and forced pace of the film. Watching her performance papers over the cracks in the plot. She brings a humanity and believability to the world, especially when she experiences things for the first time. Her performance does, in one particular scene, extend to the melodramatic plays as if it was written by a love-sick teenager – Alita literally offers Hugo her heart, as in takes it out of her chest and offers to sell it so that Hugo can buy passage to Zalem.



Ably supporting Salazar is Oscar winner Christoph Waltz. In his usual understated way, he brings a quiet dignity to Dr. Ido, a man haunted by his past as a Motorball mechanic/doctor and the death of his daughter. His motivation for his side-hustle rings true, despite the clichéd past motivator and this is mainly due to Waltz’ performance. Jennifer Connolly, also an Oscar winner, as his ex-wife seeking to do anything to get to Zalem, is wasted in the role. She is somewhat one note and her redemption moment does not ring true given her motivation and shallow character arc. Another wasted role is fellow Oscar winner Mahershala Ali (are you noticing a trend?). He does the best he can with a one note character. He is evil as Vector and he clearly has fun paying the moustache twirling bad guy, but he does not get the chance to stretch.

As always, James Cameron is at his best when creating fantastical worlds...

Counter-balancing the fast-paced story and under-developed characters is a fully realised and amazingly realistic world. Iron City’s underclass status as Zalem’s farm and factory rings true. A future world with a literal upper- and lower class seems likely given the way the world is moving. The integration of cybernetics feels realistic, just YouTube 3D printed prosthetic limbs and you will see how close we are to real cybernetics. Even the crime of cyborgs getting jacked in the street for their expensive limbs is just the logical extension of the modern scourge of carjacking. As always, James Cameron is at his best when creating fantastical worlds, rather than when he tries to tell a story or write dialogue.



Supporting the amazing world building are the effects. The creation of the cyborgs from people with a replacement arm or legs to the more exotic characters like the praying mantis woman and Hunter/Warrior Zapan, played by Ed Skrein, clearly having fun as another really evil bad guy, are unbelievable. As Zapan moves around the screen you can clearly see through his neck, between the various supports.

The only two cyborgs that look unrealistic are Alita herself, but I put that down to the fact that she is a full cyborg and should look a little artificial, and Grewishka. Played by Jackie Earle Haley, Grewishka looks just too artificial. In fact, until I saw the credits, I had no idea that he was played by Haley. I think that his artificial look is down to the fact that his face is CGI like Alita’s, whereas the other cyborgs use the real faces of the actors for the most part. It is unfortunate that it stands out so much, but for an eight-foot-tall by three-foot-wide brute like Grewishka they had to recreate his face to keep it in proportion.

Alita: Battle Angel is the best western live action adaptation of a manga (the Kenshin and Blade of the Immortal films are Japanese live action adaptations). It is held back by the poor pace and under-developed characters, but the amazing world gives me hope for the obvious sequel and the future of western manga adaptations.