USA TODAY International Edition
Cool heroine can’t save flawed ‘Alita’
“Alita: Battle Angel” really tests the limits of the theory that Mahershala Ali makes everything better.
Co-writer/producer James Cameron and director Robert Rodriguez team up to adapt the Japanese manga series, and the results are what one might expect from two nerd gods of filmmaking: a visually stunning computer-generated heroine, impressive futuristic world-building and some neat action scenes.
But for all its whiz-bang goodness, “Alita” (★★g☆; rated PG-13; in theaters nationwide Thursday) is almost undone by its flawed script. The storytelling seems more interested in setting up future installments than perfecting its own plot, and hackneyed lines like “She has the face of an angel and a body built for battle” belong in a 1930s noir – or a more macho Cameron flick – rather than what could have been a fantastic female-empowerment tale.
Played by Rosa Salazar via motion capture, Alita is a cyborg teenager in 2563 put together by cyberphysician Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) amid a civilization built around the haves and the have-nots. Much like a lot of other folks in Iron City, a working-class locale where many people have metal parts and robotic accoutrements, Alita looks up at Zalem, a well-to-do city hovering ahead that’s the last remnant of an epic past war and a utopia that most everyone would rather live in.
Waking up with no memories before being built by her Geppetto-like father figure, the naive Alita at first considers herself an “insignificant girl” until she figures out she has innate kung-fu fighting skills programmed within her. During her search for self-identity – and grander destiny – she crushes on street-smart local boy Hugo (Keean Johnson), who wants to escape off to Zalem with her, plus gets involved in the world of hunter killers (bounty hunters who eliminate criminal cyborgs) and also becomes enamored of Motorball, an extreme spectator sport (roller derby meets rugby) run by shady businessman Vector (a scenery-chewing Ali).
Alita is a work of digital art as much as her genre predecessors Gollum (“Lord of the Rings”) and Caesar (“Planet of the Apes”) – perhaps more so because of how photorealistically human she is. Her supersize eyes match the original manga aesthetic, and although there is initially a freaky uncanny valley effect, you get used to her look as she and other CG characters (including Ed Skrein’s Zapan, whose only flesh is on his face) blend in with the unaltered actors.
In terms of likable characters, though, Alita is pretty much it. Dad’s way too overprotective, she has the worst boyfriend ever, and Ali’s Vector fails at being the fun villain this film desperately needs. Also, the narrative does Alita’s newfound agency no favors: She ultimately embraces her inner warrior, but too often she makes decisions with the onus of helping male characters rather than herself.
Those small details undermine the positives of “Battle Angel,” where a super-cool artifice can’t mask its inherent struggles for a wonder girl to take wing.