Film of the Week: Alita – Battle Angel

The technical marvels this film has is outstanding. James Cameron may not have been the director of this film, but his stamp has been securely pressed on this film. As a director, James Cameron loves pushing the envelope on what can be achieved with computer animation, even being patient enough to wait years for motion capture technology to catch up to his monumental Avatar film, which successfully held the record as highest grossing film for 10 years straight before Avengers Endgame dropped it down to second place. Needless to say, James Cameron having made two films to be the first and second highest grossing films – the second being Titanic, is one heck of an achievement.

Terminator 2’s CGI effects still hold strong with today’s standards. It’s common for what was considered to be the pinnacle to look outdated and a little frayed around the edges compared to today’s crystal clear effects. Yet, the seamless way he integrated all the effects not only in Terminator 2, but also in Titanic, where if I weren’t told, would have believed it wasn’t computer effects, but instead a full model. Whilst a model was built for some scenes, a CGI recreation for most of the wide angle shots was used to highlight the moments which couldn’t have been properly recreated with practical effects due to the nature of how the ship sunk.

Alita – Battle Angel is yet another ground-breaking masterpiece in which the motion capture technology is wondrous. It’s a beautiful, majestic film.

Live-actions anime films, especially made in America, has a synonymous curse to that of a live-action reaction of a video game – it doesn’t go down well with the audience. The American adaptation of Death Note is a perfect example of the curse, since it changes light too much. In fact, put them two beside each other, you wouldn’t put them both in the same character category. One screams his head off at everything, whilst the real Light is a cool, calm, character. Alita – Battle Angel has come under some pressure from the fan base of the manga and anime, which is understandable. An adaptation does exactly what it says on the tin, it adapts, therefore it changes certain elements depending on what format it’ll be presented in. However, it has been well-received as well, more so than any other American live-action anime film has ever had the pleasure of having.

Could it be because of the technological elements overshadowing everything else, preventing us from seeing the truth within, or is it, generally, a good film. If you pay attention to the story and character development, you’ll see that there really is that much of it. Alita’s story arc does jump forward a bit in some scenes, and her arc doesn’t necessarily go anywhere notable by the end of the film, and some fans have criticised the character to being overpowered, defeating the necessity of any struggle her character finding out who she is would normally have.

When I saw this film, I did see the justification behind those arguments, but also noted one strong counterargument which balances the whole film out for me. She is overpowered, she doesn’t need much character development other than remembering who she is, because of her extraordinary training she had before she lost her memories. Gradually, when cornered, Alita would remember her training and perform some immense moves against her enemies. Amnesia is a tricky subject to fully get right, but the way they tackled the subject in this film by having it come back in waves, was perfect for the type of person she was, and complemented and justified the training she had. My only criticism with this film is that her backstory wasn’t as fleshed out as it could have been to explain better why she doesn’t need as much development, and why she was overpowered; once she remembered who she was, that was all the development she needed.

I absolutely loved this film, not only for the technology, but because it is also an easy watch. I just wish it went on longer, but understandably, it couldn’t as the film cost an extraordinary amount of money just to make it 2 hours, let alone 2 and a half, or longer. Hopefully we would get a sequel. Then her true development arc would begin.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)