Alita: Battle Angel, mini movie review

Rating: B-/C+

Have you ever been given a can of soda and opened it, soda spraying everywhere in surprise?  Someone, somewhere, thought it would be a real good idea to shake up that can and put it back on the shelf, and you're left with a sticky sugar mess.  Explosion!  All that built up tension released.  The mess is annoying, the soda spray satisfying.

Technically, I've given up soda, but while in the theater I held a figurative can of soda, and through micro climaxes I kept shaking this can.  Shaking.  Shaking.  And Shaking some more.

But I shouldn't get too ahead of myself.

Alita: Battle Angel is based on a 1990's Japanese manga in the cyberpunk genre.  The landscape is dystopian.  A floating city hovers above a junkyard landscape, scraps of technology scattered in mounds.  Dr. Dyson Ido, played by Christoph Waltz, repairs cyborg parts on humans, scouring the junkyard for spare items.  As he searchers he finds Alita, voiced and acted by Rosa Salazar, a cyborg girl missing her body and memories.  Ido repairs Alita, and as she becomes acquainted with the World she now lives, her scattered memories lead to a building conflict stretching centuries.

There's restlessness.  Drudgery.  A little romance.  Discovery.  A fractured world.  A suppressing enemy.  Killing cyborgs.  Exciting action scenes.  Motorball, a popular game with prestige.  Then there's Alita's tale of discovery and the wish to journey above.

Alita: Battle Angel is well cast.  The special effects revolutionary.  This movie is a visual splendor.

And Alita, being a manga inspired story, and very, very anime.  I've never read the manga, but from what I've seen online those who love the Alita stories love the movie.

As someone not familiar with the original source material, I found myself intrigued at times with the World presented in Alita, but also lost at other times as to what the true conflict is, getting some terms switched.  Maybe I just need another viewing to see if I might have zoned, causing confusion.  It's possible.  The way certain plot points steer is very anime, which is hard to explain.  There's a grittiness to some anime.  I'm not talking Pokemon.  I'm talking Full Metal Alchemist and the like.  A darkness that gets a little psychological.  That leaves you cold.  There's some of that in Alita: Battle Angel.  This movie is also very violent.  If the violence was turned to humans instead of cyborgs, this movie would have an easy R rating. (Writing that last bit for anyone with kids, who's wondering).

There are parts of Alita I like.  Love her character.  Rosa Salazar with the audition of animators did a fine job.  Her large eyes didn't bother me as she's based on an anime character and is supposed to be otherworldly.

I just didn't care for the ending.  There isn't one.  Not trying to spoil anything, but I'm not, really, as the ending is a cliff-hanger, end of volume style.  At the end of the movie I'm holding my figurative can of soda without the benefit of releasing the tab.  All this built up pressure.  I'm just worried we may not be getting a sequel, and this movie needs a sequel.

Alita: Battle Angel is not a family movie, but if you love anime, cyberpunk, or other similar genres, you may like this movie.

MPAA: PG-13.