The way our world will be in the future is something that has fascinated audiences of all types for years. The last few years alone have seen advances in technology move forward faster and faster to the point where it is almost like artificial intelligence is just around the corner, and that fascination has turned a Japanese manga into Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron collaborating on “Alita: Battle Angel”.
Rosa Salazar (Bird Box) plays the title character, who is a cyborg discovered in a scrap yard by Dr Dyson Ito, played by Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) after an event known as The Fall. Knowing nothing of her past, Alita finds out she has great abilities that can be used in a sport called Motor Ball in Iron City. She is also under the watch of Vector (Mahershala Ali) and Dr. Ito’s ex-wife Chiren (Jennifer Connelly), who want to use her for their own reasons while she moonlights as a bounty hunter.
This film has a ton of CGI, which is needed to tell this fantasy story correctly in a big budget production where all of the cyborgs looked real combined with real and CGI sets. With this type of film, you may not expect award nominations, but overall it was good with the established stars doing what they do as Salazar shines as the cyborg who feels like a young teen that can also kick butt at the same time.
At about two hours, I feel that the film works well in its time frame even though the story does get a little complicated at times with some twists that may have not been needed as it breaks from the normal “bad dude comes in and tries to destroy the earth or universe and the superhero comes to the rescue”. I was able to see the film in Dolby Vision 3-D, which is a great treat, and even though I am not sure that the 3-D is worth the extra cost, the Dolby Vision alone was worth it, so do so at an afternoon or twilight showing.