Holy moly. That was a LOT. "Alita: Battle Angel" is the first MUST-SEE-IN-THEATERS film of 2019 for me. Its story takes place 327 years after “the Fall” of all but one of the “sky cities,” with everyone left on plain old Earth resigned to only dreaming about making it up to the last existing sky city of Zalem.
In this future reality, robots live among humans, as technology has advanced enough to build them with human receptors that increase in effectiveness with every passing experience. What’s even more remarkable is that enough strides have been made to where a human brain, if kept intact and gotten to a CMD (Cyborg Medical Doctor) in time, can be melded with a cyborg body- effectively fusing human minds with robot bodies to create incredibly strong and resourceful cyborgs.
Alita is one such cyborg who was rescued and put together by one of the community’s most renown CMDs in Dr. Ido (played by the seemingly always perfectly casted Christoph Waltz). From there, the audience travels alongside Alita on her journey to “rediscover” who she used to be as well as who she wants to be currently, with a love story inevitably playing a pivotal role. The experience was like making my way through an RPG (role-playing game) controlled by an alarmingly capable gamer. The visual effects were immersive and heightened even more so by the fact that I watched them in Regal E-Walk RPX’s 4DX theater in Times Square. Much like an RPG game, the audience learns just as much as is needed to progress through the plot and keep an interest in the development thereof. And, for fans of Mahershala Ali (among which I firmly include myself), he brings another familiar face to this grandiose movie production. If that weren't enough, the actor playing the role of the main, overarching villain is another tried-and-true fan favorite whose identity I was also excited to uncover towards the end of the film.
Alita: Battle Angel is also the on-screen representation of a very long series of pre-exiting comics. So, while it will undoubtedly leave readers of the origin story wishing for more, a LOT happens in the span of 2 hours. Plus, the stage is most certainly set for at least one more film to follow. If ever there was a film worth investing the time and money into watching it on the big screen it is this one, as Alita: Battle Angel slices and dices its way to a solid 3.5 reps out of 5 for making the most out of its action scenes while bringing as much legitimacy to the story’s arch as is needed to retain the audience’s attention throughout.
Have you seen the Angel of War known as Alita yet? Are you excited for where the storyline seems destined to head next?
This was a GOOD one. Definitely looking forward to part 2.
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