Saw
Alita: Battle Angel recently, only my first movie of the year.
To be honest my expectations for this were on the low side, which may have helped my enjoyment because overall I found it quite a surprising delight?
The movie certainly has MANY problems: Alita's central struggle hinges entirely on dime-a-dozen amnesiac destined hero characterisation which feels old and tropey. The central romance just flat-out doesn't really work, because the guy is just the wettest pancake on screen since the bad boy love interest from the Lizzie McGuire Movie. It doesn't help that Alita herself looks a lot older than he does because of the extensive motion-capture changes to her facial structure (and also she's a killer cyborg while he... rides on a bike...). In general I'm not confident anyone of the writing staff really gets teenage girls; trying to signal independence by making her essentially play rollerderby is such a trope. Maybe it's a holdover from the source material...?
Structurally the movie is also very overstuffed, coming in at least 30 minutes too long. It has at least 4 different endings all stacked back-to-back, ranging from resolution, to late-game twists, to the birth of entirely new motivations, to revelations about the past casting everything in new light.
With those negatives out of the way though... The CGI is incredible in this film. Alita looks equally uncanny valley and human enough, with exaggerated facial expressions. She's an animated cartoon come to life. The fight scenes are really energetic, creative, and surprisingly violent. They're real highlights, much more stylish than many of the average Marvel punch-ups.
I found the character of Alita immediately likable, she's worth rooting for. Additionally, the world design is right up my alley. Sitting somewhere between the trash planet from Thor: Ragnarok, Firefly and maybe Beyond Good & Evil it's basically laser-focused to my tastes.
Ultimately I think this movie isn't really aiming for adults, with the rather generic story and largely absent villain. But I think kids of say ages 10-15 would really dig it. The tone kind of lands in that Speed Racer and Spy Kids zone, or maybe something like an earlier X-Men movie. I wish they went a bit further with the whole human-in-machine body angle, because it has all kinds of interesting transhumanist implications. But ultimately the movie isn't trying to be Ghost in the Shell or Blade Runner, it's trying to tell a gorgeous action story for teen audiences.
I'm not very well-versed in manga/anime but this at least feels like a great adaptation.
Recommended if you want a colourful, uncomplicated popcorn action movie. It skews a bit younger than the average Marvel fare, but I think there's a lot of overlapping appeal there. Definitely got me excited to try Captain Marvel next. I hope Alita gets a sequel, it feels fresh with rich worldbuilding and there's a lot of potential for depth.