Review of the film "Alita: Battle Angel"

It is no coincidence that the distributors released Alita: Battle Angel straight for Valentine's Day. Instead of a dark cyberpunk story full of hyper-cruelty and fanciful philosophical reflections, Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron, emphasizing the romantic elements of the anime and manga of the same name, turned "Alita" into a fantastic version of "Romeo and Juliet".

Well, such a reading also has every right to exist, especially considering the amorousness of our combat cyborg in the subsequent volumes of the manga. Moreover, a literal adaptation of the manga would have received a rating not even 18+, but some 21+, and it certainly would not be worth going with ... [there should be a gender-neutral definition of the subject of romantic interest].

The original Battle Angel Alita manga, also known as Gunnm (銃 夢 Ganmu, literally "Dreams of a Weapon"), was released in 1990–95. The first two volumes, considered canonical, in fact, and which formed the basis of the Hollywood film adaptation, tell a fairly simple story of an amnesiac a cyborg girl who, as a hunter for criminals, breaks the skulls of bad guys. The author of the manga Yukito Kishiro was forced to remake his story according to the requirements of the customer, so the first two volumes are not at all what the author originally intended. In the future, the tone of the story and the main character change, more social and philosophical motives appear in the manga ... And more text, after all, to be honest, in the first volumes there are often spreads without remarks at all, and the style of drawing in them is quite careless.

Actually, the story that Yukito Kishiro wanted to tell from the very beginning starts with the sixth volume of the manga, but he could not finish it. For personal reasons, the author abruptly interrupted work on Battle Angel Alita in the ninth volume, adding a tearful happy ending. However, this did not stop him from returning to his beloved character six years later, launching a direct sequel to Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, canceling the last chapter and epilogue of the original manga. Last Order was published from 2000 to 2014 and has 15 volumes, versus 9 volumes for Battle Angel Alita. Right now, the sequel to the series Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicle (2014–) is coming out, containing already six volumes and telling, among other things, about Alita's childhood. Considering the spin-offs, the manga about Alita and the world of the XXVI century has been published almost without interruption for 27 years.

Actually, the current Hollywood film adaptation is based more on anime than on the first two volumes of the manga, although some episodes, the same motorball, are taken from volumes 3-5, and Alita's memories of her past belong to 8-9 books. The anime itself is a somewhat simplified and lighter version of the manga, with much less violence and violence. In the film version, the amount of blood, brains and intestines was completely "twisted" to almost zero, the world of the Landfill itself was made more comfortable for life, and its inhabitants - more human, in the truest sense of the word. The fact is that in the original manga there are practically no pure people in the Garbage, everyone has one or another cyber improvement, from a banal replacement of hands to completely artificial bodies. However, I cannot say that this went to the detriment of the film.

So, the middle of the XXVI century. The Dump is a city built on the waste products of the last flying city on Earth, Tiferes. Everything that is in the Landfill is garbage, literally falling from heaven. Life in the city is strictly controlled. Firearms are prohibited, flights are prohibited, attempts to get into the heavenly city are strictly prohibited. Dr. Ido runs a clinic for humans and cyborgs living in the Garbage, and is looking for spare parts to repair its inhabitants. During one of these sorties, he finds the torso of a cyborg girl with a still working brain, decides to revive her and give her a body. Alita, who received the name of the doctor's deceased daughter (in the manga it was a cat, and the whole story with her daughter looks too corny), does not remember anything about her past, although her brain still stores the techniques of the cyborg martial art, forgotten three hundred years ago, during the Great war.

Perhaps one of the main differences between the movie Alita: Battle Angel and the original manga is the character of Alita. Yes, in the first two volumes she is still a very naive, very correct girl, but on the whole she has a rebellious character. She does a lot in defiance of everyone, including her father. By the way, in the original, the relationship between Ido and Alita is not only the relationship between father and daughter; the doctor, like Pygmalion, also feels in love with his Galatea (in order to avoid accusations of pedophilia propaganda, they decided to remove this line from the film). So, almost nothing remained of Alita's rebellious character in the Hollywood version. She, like a pioneer or a fan fiction character, is too positive, too correct, downright “guest from the future” in the post-apocalyptic world. The only scene in which Alita decides to show herself is a fight in a bar, and she is just beautiful,

In general, most of the canon episodes and items from manga and anime have been transferred to the film very close to the original. Even the ridiculous rocket hammer of Dr. Ido, to put it mildly, the strange design of robot administrators and, as if pulled out of a video game, the protective crusher blades of Tytheres. But Alita's opponents are more likely the composite images of all the villains whom she had to kill over the course of 2300 pages of the manga.

Initially, James Cameron himself wanted to take up the adaptation of Battle Angel Alita, having nurtured this idea for decades, but in the end, the maestro, who is now occupied by Avatar 2 and Avatar 3, gave up the director's chair to Robert Rodriguez, who ate a dog on spectacular action films. However, Cameron remained the producer and screenwriter of the film. And although Rodriguez's recent works are no longer as impressive as his earlier films, let us recall at least a very weak Sin City: A Dame to Kill For , we expected explosive action from the author of El Mariachi, Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City and Machete. and we got it.

Combat scenes in Alita: Battle Angel are delivered simply superb. The same fight in the bar, the fight between Ido and Alita with Gryuishka and his gang, motorball scenes. The combat choreography is just a pleasure to watch. In addition, Alita is one of the few films in recent years that was originally shot in 3D rather than post-converted. And it really does feel.

How does the budget invested in computer graphics feel. From the actress Rosa Salazar, who plays the role of Alita, in the film almost nothing but rich facial expressions is left - this is more a character in a computer game than a living actor. However, thanks to the facial expressions of Salazar and the efforts of the animators, the heroine turned out to be incredibly lively, pretty and extremely sweet. And although in the commercials it seemed that Alita's exaggeratedly large eyes would make the character a little creepy (recalling the notorious "sinister valley"), in fact, this allegory with the heroine's youth and naivety is quite appropriate and even gives the cyborg girl an additional charm.

The filmmakers managed to pull three Oscar winners into the picture at once, however, the way the authors disposed of such wealth is somewhat discouraging. And although the incredibly talented Christoph Waltz is trying to pull at least something out of his now overly corny role (minus the romantic line, plus a completely unnecessary line with his wife), he, frankly, has nothing to play here. As the character of Ido should be revealed in the sequel, if such happens, here he is assigned a very simple function of the father figure. The situation is even worse with the heroes of Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali. The first could be dispensed with altogether; it appears out of nowhere and into nowhere and disappears. And the second was turned from an independent and rather interesting hero, acting also in the subsequent volumes of the manga, into a strange mobile phone, according to which the main villain of the film, who remains behind the scenes, Dr. Nova (again, a character from the later volumes of the manga), communicates with Alita. It's a shame for Connelly and Ali, they are really very good actors and don't deserve to be used as furniture.

However, in the case of Alita: Battle Angel, you can close your eyes to problems with casting, crumpled storylines, too schematic characters, excessive sugaryness of some scenes in the case of Alita: Battle Angel. For a fantastically beautiful picture, excellent battle scenes and an incredibly cute heroine, this film can be forgiven for everything. I'd like very much that Alita, whose budget exceeded $ 170 million, paid off, and we would see the continuation of this story. Maybe a little more mature and serious.

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