Do you want the idea of seeing yet another western reinterpretation of an oriental work, do you want the little success that manga-inspired films have had, fear hovered - and still hovers - around Alita: the Angel of the Battle. Taking ideas printed on black and white paper and making them tangible, for an audience now addicted to ultra-realistic graphics and special effects capable of leaving us speechless, is a real challenge, which fortunately is based on names such as Robert Rodriguez (direction) e James Cameron (producer). But it's worth it?
Born to fight
The film, which in about 2 hours - more or less - covers the entire plot of the first series (of the same name) released in the 90s, immediately puts a well-structured action in the spotlight, capable of bringing the viewer into a world where the law of the strongest applies. The city of Iron, the slums of a world that uses technology both to improve the bodies of human beings and to make them cyborgs, contrasts with an idyllic Zalem which remains in heaven, inaccessible to those below. The doctor there Dyson Ido (Westernization of the original name in the manga Daisuke Ido, Christoph Waltz) finds a cyborg head with the core still intact. After saving her and giving him a new body, the adventures of forgetfulness will begin Alita (Rosa Salazar in Motion Capture), in search of his origins and discovering new friends, including Hugo (Keean Johnson).
The plot does not shine with originality, but serves as a path to the increasingly well-directed subsequent fight, adrenaline enough, never exaggerated but capable of putting the computer graphics used for the occasion under strain. To support everything, however, the setting takes care of it, original taken from the hands of Yukito Kishiro (mangaka creator of the work). Unfortunately, in some respects the story finds some hitches: if some originate from the mother work, others are hastily inserted, giving a too exaggerated sense of speed. The removal of these would have allowed to develop instead parts of the plot that would have been decidedly more important.
This problem is also found in the pool of enemies, too many for a single film of 2 and a half hours and therefore reduced to specks (Ed Skrein like Zapan, Jackie Earle Haley as Grewishka e Mahershala Ali such as Vector). Despite everything, the real problem remains the sense of expectation that, at the end of the film, leaves us with a desire to find out more about the past of the Angel of the Battle (which we see in some flashbacks with a mentor acted - always in Motion Capture - from Michelle Rodriguez) and on the challenge that awaits her against Nova, the terrible enemy (Edward Norton).
Adrenaline
If the poster already highlighted how the core of the film was action, after the first 20 minutes even the film itself begins to heat up, bringing very balanced fights. Although the plot continues towards terribly discounted shores (except for two or three small twists, but nothing special), this goes into the background precisely because the whole experience becomes great fun in seeing this adventure made of classic stylistic features (and often dedicated to the manga of type Shonen).
None of this could exist without the technical sector, sublime in everything: from the faithfully recreated setting to the various cybernetic bodies, every single detail is amalgamated in a fusion of Computer Graphics and really high quality reality. Unfortunately the Motion Capture, although it manages to honor the character of Alita and the other cyborgs, it carries some flaws: the mouth, above all, will sometimes have slightly unnatural movements, perhaps also due to a facial expression that is not always faithfully reproduced. However, these can be counted on the fingers of one hand, against the exquisite craftsmanship of the rest of the scenes.
In short, the 200 million spent can be seen from first to last, and they bring to the cinema a film that shows how it is possible to tell a story made of moral and ethical principles without dwelling too much on talking. Between humans colder than metal and hot-hearted cyborgs, Alita: the Angel of the Battle is an action movie that shines, despite its non-original plot and its problems, of a warm light and its own, placing emphasis on the action without forgetting to contextualize and localize the characters, not too thick psychologically but concrete and never banal.
