☿ ﹒Alita: Battle Angel , movie review

alita battle angel was such an amazing movie ! i enjoyed it very much , but there was so much wasted potential with it , and its pretty disappointing. 

of course you can say this about a variety of movies , and alita is not special in what it lacked , but it's a very important movie to me , as i've been invested in cyberpunk culture for as long as i can possibly remember , and alita is pretty much a cyberpunk enthusiast's dream . 

released in 2019 , alita : battle angel is set in the 26th century , 2533 , and follows a young cyborg girl named alita ( originally called 99 ) who's cyberbody remains were found in a scrapyard by Dr. Ido . he repairs her and takes care of her , as she has no memory of who she was prior to being found . but he infantilizes her , and projects the life he wished of his deceased daughter onto her , and its evident . 

as the movie progresses , alita uncovers more and more memories , discovering that she was a warrior for the united republics of mars , a colony bound republic that was at war with earth . with nova , the mastermind . it's not clarified why exactly nova must be stopped or why the URMs were against him , only that it was their motive for war . 

ido is not happy with this , still trying to project the life he wanted for his daughter onto this girl , and tries to hide this info from her . despite this , alita rebels against him and becomes a hunter warrior , basically the city's police force for hire , as she feels this is the only way she will be able to uncover more of her memories . 

alita also manages to form a positive relationship with a boy named hugo , who she was under the impression was a simple scrapyard jacker . but its later revealed that he jacks cyborgs like alita for parts for money , as he believes if he gets enough money he will be able to return to zalem , the floating city . however as he gets to know alita , he realizes what he's doing is wrong and that he doesn't want to do it anymore . so he stops for her . 

the movie ends with alita beating the minor antagonist , grewhiska , and encountering nova " face to face " for the first time . hugo ends up dying trying to climb to zalem himself , and alita is motivated by his death to continue her previous mission of exterminating nova . 

this movie was execellent . a wonderful work of art , animation , and design . the visual aspects of this movie are engaging and interesting . i reference it all the time when talking about good examples of cyberpunk designs in media . 

however this movie was Very Clearly written by a white man and it shows in many parts of the film . namely the treatment of BIPOC and women characters . 

this movie could have been a HUGE step in the right direction for feminism and equality especially in the cyberpunk community , as it's already a huge problem . however it failed to meet this , and it did so in a very predictable way unfortunately .

what with how if women are in the shot they are either in a skimpy outfit or about to be killed . and with BIPOC characters they are either misrepresented with white actors or treated as only villains and killers . 

alita , the main character , is made to look much younger than her actual age , and treated as such despite her maturity and skills . a lot of shots of her in the movie are either of carefully fabricated pretty faces or unnecessary shots of her chest or behind . 

one thing i will give credit with , is that they did not hold back on her full strength , and did not give her a preverse costume design . she is designed to be stronger than her opponents in most if not every way due to her alliance's incredibly advanced technology and combat skills , and the movie is not shy about showing this . 

all in all , a wonderful movie aesthetically , wonderful soundtrack , wonderful designs . i would recommend this to anyone who enjoys cyberpunk culture and aesthetics . just do so with a grain of salt !

7/10 stars !