Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Produced by James Cameron, Screenplay by James Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis

Starring: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Jackie Earle Haley

Battle Angel Alita is a movie filled with distractions. Like most of the Hollywood adaptations of foreign source material, it forsakes the necessary world building and storytelling for the sake of expedited spectacle and exposition. It is not a horrible film per say, but it is not a truly effective one either. And why does the German actor Christoph Waltz play a guy with the last name Ido? Who knows. Then there’s the worry of how Robert Rodriguez was going to handle directing this. Everyone walking into this movie wondered if we were going to get Sin City 1 or 2 Rodriguez. I’m sorry to disappoint the fans, it’s Sin City 2.

People unfamiliar with the manga (I knew nothing about it going in) will be puzzled several times, because the writers have omitted all the things that make the key moments so good. Even as an outsider to this material, I felt painfully that so much was missing from this world. A friend of mine pointed out after the movie ended that it felt as though the writers thought they had written a great movie because they know the context for all the scenes in it, but they forgot to queue the audience in. I replied that it’s like if Thanos snapped his fingers in Iron Man 1. I mean, would anyone on the planet know what the fuck happened or why it was important? Infinity War had all those movies before it to build up to that insane moment, the moment were the villain wins. Battle Angel is 2 hours condensed from what I can only guess could wind up filling a whole Netflix series of material with. And yes, the movie ends cheesily as a setup to future films and sequels. Looking at the box office, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that.

It’s set in the future, the year is 2563. We’re told it’s 300 years after “The Fall”, which was some war that left the Earth in a dystopia. A scientist named Dr. Dyson Ido (remember, played by Waltz), scrounges through a junkyard for parts. His stumbles upon what’s left of battered female cyborg, and finds out she is alive. He goes to work to remake her body. She awakens in the next scene, aware of her existence and able to speak and walk (although she trips at first). She has no memory. She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know who Ido is either. They bond over oranges as he ensures the technology he built her with works. She can taste the oranges. She can feel pain. She can even cry. Ido names her Alita.

The biggest surprise of this movie is Alita herself. The visuals of her facial features are kind of incredible. She looked like a goofy joke with her big eyes in all the trailers. But in the movie, Rosa Salazar (who provides the voice and motion capture of Alita) elevate it into something more. If only the movie were as good as she is. I was reminded of Bane in the The Dark Knight Rises. Bane is a great villain, the movie he is in is horrible.

Back to the plot. Alita bonds with a boy in the street named Hugo. He’s a bad actor. Of course he is the love interest. He wants to move on up to the city in the sky called Zalem, just like everyone else. And man, do they let you hear it. It’s the place with all the wealth, and it can’t be as bad as the junky Iron City down below where they live. The disparity of worlds like this has been done to death in stories, and dates all the way back to Metropolis in the movies (and maybe even before that).

Let’s talk about the Iron City for a minute. What a bland and uninteresting area this movie sets itself in. With beaten stackhouses sitting directly below the weirdly metal construction in the sky above them. This looks like a place any of us could visit. Where’s the science fiction in this? Because there’s cyborgs walking around? And the streets are patrolled by Centurions? Who look nearly identical to that robot from Robo Cop? What is this. A scene deep into the movie had Alita and Hugo talking, and in the background it looked like a regular marketplace. And I all I noticed were the paid extras pretending to shop around behind them. How invested I was.

But okay. Here’s something to note. A mysterious bounty hunter goes out at night and preys on cyborgs. But wait, is it a mystery when two scenes later you discover it’s Ido himself? And did you wonder why he instantly named her Alita, just to be informed half an act later that was his daughter’s name? How about Jennifer Connelly, unbelievably distracting as Chiren. Don’t have to guess who she is, as soon as you meet her you’re told she was Ido’s former wife.

You see, there’s all these reveals, all these story telling beats that ignore the buildup. Continually, the movie tells us things it thinks are big secrets, but forgets what makes a secret is not knowing. The exposition of this movie is pretty disappointing. It’s not as legendary as Ready Player One’s offensive spewing of details that was impossible to keep the fuck up with. But it’s just such a shame to have things lamely told to you. I was shocked to see Bill Pope’s name in the end credits as DP. The majority of this film is so blandly expressed, I’ve seen more creative lighting in student films. The ending of Mortal Engines was so dark and ugly, that you couldn’t tell what was happening. Battle Angel has the opposite issue. Everything is so brightly lit, I swear the exposure is so high. It’s not SO bad or anything, it’s just awkward and weird. That may not bother you but I just sat there wondering what was wrong with my eyes. This movie just doesn’t look right.

But ah yes, Motorball. The popular and violent sport that everyone watches or plays. Alita is fascinated by it. She’ll eventually enter in the big race in hopes to help Hugo get to Zalem. The film’s very best sequence is during this race, as finally the movie looks amazing, and all the choreography and motion of the sport is riveting. All the other contestants try to kill Alita, because Vector ordered them to. Did I mention Vector? He’s played by Mahershala Ali. Why is Mahershala Ali in this movie? Another distraction. Vector is just a dumb villain behind the scenes, and follows his orders from another dumb villain behind the scenes. Try and guess which actor plays that one, the one called Nova. It’s the dumbest reveal so far this year.

And Jackie Earle Haley plays Grewishka, a terrible and stupid bad guy cyborg. Why do all the villains in this movie suck. But the fights are mostly good. Especially the one in the Hunter-Warrior bar. That’s the name of those bounty hunters, and that’s what Alita (quite easily) registers herself after Ido as. It’s pretty dumb. All this happens way too quick. Alita’s call to arms in the bar is pure cringe, and hurt me as much as Jyn Erso’s in Rogue One. But the fight that breaks out after is pretty cool. Not that I cared about anyone other than Alita.

A lot of this stuff just doesn’t make sense. Why would Alita stand idly by for Grewishka to kill that dog? So she can wipe its blood on her face like war paint. And how she stands by as the British Cyborg Zapan stabs Hugo. And how the Hunter-Warrior’s code isn’t relevant until it is. I just don’t get it. Oh, but Alita has flashbacks to her former life whenever she is in battle. Turns out she has always fought against evil, and her mission was to destroy Zalem. Would have been nice if she saved that dog.

This movie, as I said, is filled with distractions. Non Japanese actors playing characters with Japanese names. A marketplace junkyard world that looks like it’s part of our own instead of the distant future. Rules and codes that are not mentioned until they need to be. And Alita just finds the Berserker armor. And Nova speaks through the bodies of Vector and Grewishka at times, which was pretty cool. Especially Vector’s last scene, the music here was awesome, as well as Ali’s performance. But these moments are so few and far between.

Battle Angel Alita is just too much of a weak production for me to enjoy. James Cameron bought the rights almost 20 years ago, and gave up directing it to instead pursue Avatar (and all the Avatar sequels we are about to be hit with). But as one of the co-writers of the screenplay, his writing is unimaginative and weak, and neglects so much to give us so little. The movie does look amazing at times, but its entire bland aesthetic in the first half turned me off so much. There’s no way this movie cost $170 million. There’s just no way. Rodriguez was not the right choice to helm this. And making this movie to be the first of many was a huge mistake. The product does not justify the budget. Split it up guys. Spend 50 mill on a risky feature like this. Then see where it goes. Now you’re banking on China for diminishing returns, just at the very end to say you’ve cut your losses. You can do better than this. Props to the visual effects team and Rosa. You brought your A game. Everyone else phoned it in.