I quite enjoyed this movie. Of course it was a good start that it was directed by Robert Rodriguez. It is perhaps a bit of a young adult movie but that did not stop this old fart from enjoying it.
I guess most people know the basic premise of the movie. It is based on a Japanese cyberpunk manga. Alita, a cyborg, is found by Dr. Ido. She is reawakened, given a new body (two actually), she is much more than she seems and … she kicks ass.
The movie plays out in a somewhat post apocalyptic world although it is not as dark and depressing as many post apocalyptic scenarios. It is actually quite colorful and sometimes both funny and cool. A lot of people, if not most of them, in this world are cybernetically enhanced. Alita herself is a “full body conversion”. It is a quite detailed world full of pretty cool cyberpunk gadgets.
The various cyborgs themselves are of course the “main feature” of the movie. They range in a wide variety from fairly human-like to cyborg tanks. Most of them wielding various kinds of bladed weapons. Of course the CGI and the various action scenes are top notch. Alita is really cool when she gets going with her ass-kicking.
Story? Well it is manga of course so it is pretty simple but having said that it’s not bad at all. I definitely feel there is some elements from Rollerball in the no rules racing and ball chasing games which is a centerpiece of the story.
One thing that I liked immensely is that there is really no preaching in this movie. No green nonsense and no social crap. Maybe that’s because it’s based on a Japanese manga and the Japanese has not yet developed the easily offended SJW mob that plagues all too many western countries nowadays. I know there’s a bunch of SJW retards that manages to cram some feminist message into it and another bunch that claims Alita is too pretty. Well if you like cyborgs with eyes like golf balls maybe but these asshats should perhaps stop their ranting and take a serious look at their sexual preferences in that case.
The only thing that I was not too happy about was that there is no real ending to it and what is there is rather sad. This Nova guy pulling the strings up in Zalem, the cloud city, is never even touched and the ending scenes just shows him smiling like a huge cliffhanger. I guess I should not be surprised because him and his cloud city is the foundation of this manga world so for the story to continue in a possible sequel that had to be kept but still … it irked me somewhat.