Robert Rodriguez, “Alita: Battle Angel” (2019)
Based on Japanese manga artist Yukito Kishiro’s cyberpunk “Battle Angel Alita” series, this film works as both an origin story and a coming-of-age story for its teenage cyborg heroine. In the year 2563 CE, three hundred years after a global war that has destroyed most of planet Earth, cyber-scientist Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) finds a disembodied female cyborg with an intact brain while scavenging for parts in a junkyard somewhere in Iron City. Iron City happens to be a metropolis where the underlings of society live. Ido gives the cyborg a new body and brings her to life, naming her “Alita” after his own long-deceased teenaged daughter. The new Alita (Rosa Salazar) has no memory of her previous life. She meets Hugo (Keean Johnson) who finds cyborg parts for Ido and others. Hugo introduces Alita to a game of Motorball, a sport played by cyborg gladiators.
Alita starts recovering her memories after she and Ido are ambushed by a group of cyborg killers led by Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley) and Alita instinctively uses a martial art called Panzer Kunst to defeat them. Ido then admits to Alita that he is a bounty hunter for the Factory, the ruling body of Iron City. When Alita later finds a cyborg body from a submerged spaceship outside Iron City and brings it to Ido, Ido recognises it for what it is – it belonged to a Berserker, one of the enemy shock troops from Mars who fought Earth 300 years ago – and refuses to install Alita in it. Upset, Alita then registers as a bounty hunter herself and she and Hugo try to recruit other bounty hunters to help her take down Grewishka. (In the meantime, Grewishka has appealed for help from Ido’s estranged wife Dr Chiren [Jennifer Connelly] and her employer Vector [Mahershala Ali] against Alita.) After beating up another bounty hunter Zapan (Ed Skrein) at a bar, Alita then takes on a revitalised Grewishka who damages her body. Ido, Hugo and a dog-master rescue Alita and Ido then gives Alita the Berserker body.
Having fallen in love with Hugo, Alita takes up Motorball to help raise money to send him to Zalem, the huge spaceship city that hovers above Iron City. Hugo resolves to give up his cyborg-scavenging job but ends up being mortally wounded by Zapan. Alita rescues Hugo and brings him back to Ido who gives him a new cyborg body. Ido tells Alita that Vector’s offer to help Hugo reach Zalem is a lie as only Motorball champions are allowed to go there. Alita then confronts Vector and discovers that he is a mouthpiece for the mysterious Nova (Edward Norton) who lives in Zalem.
The plot is very straightforward with short and very minor subplots – the antagonism between Ido and Dr Chiren, Hugo’s employment with Vector, the romance between Alita and Hugo – and concentrates on Alita’s developing awareness of who and what she really is. At the end of the film, after suffering heartbreak, Alita resolves to confront and challenge Nova’s rule of Iron City and Earth. (There has been talk of a sequel in which this confrontation would presumably take place.) While the story and several of its elements are highly derivative, and there’s very little in this film that’s original, a theme of self-awareness leading to personal transformation which in turn leads to political awareness and transformation, with the hope of freedom and self-rule at the end, becomes apparent and gives the film some gravitas.
There’s perhaps too much happening in the film for very much character development, apart from Alita’s, to occur. The romance sub-plot is shallow and forgettable and distracts viewer attention from Alita’s rivalries with Grewishka and Zapan. For a city that’s supposed to be a huge and polluted slum, Iron City looks far too cheerful and colourful, with too much sunshine. Salazar’s Alita though is a very appealing heroine who deserves a sequel, if and when it can be done.