DVD Review - Alita: Battle Angel

If only the manga was as light as this poster.

Here's a movie I've been trying to review for quite some time.

For those who don't know, I'm a bit manga/anime fan and Gunnm (as the original is called) by Yukito Kishiro was one of the most popular and a personal favorite of mine when it was released in the 90's.

Now, I already knew they couldn't fit all the story in just one film, but my take was how good of a movie adaptation this would be considering the only other manga-to-movie adaptation was Dragon Ball and I refuse to comment that! But I must say, for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised.

The story follows pretty much the first chapter of the story and it's a pretty close match to what happens in the books. The universe is all there, the action is well placed and well choreographed, we have a cool world, with cool characters and a good story. That alone, considering the source material adaptation, is already an achievement on it's own.

However, the film is not without some flaws. I don't believe they break the movie but, as an adaptation they differ from the source material and by doing so, I had some trouble during the movie.

1. The mood is much lither here. In the original Gunnm the mood set by the author is much darker and much more violent. That, in a sense, explains the whole Hunter-Warrior extreme dystopia we encounter cause, outside of Zalem, everything is supposed to be just a bland desert with minor settlements here and there. Making humanity have to struggle for resources and survival near and around the Zalem dumps.

2. The story focus differs from the original manga. Here, Alita is to become a fierce warrior in combat and that's pretty much her focus. In the manga however, her focus was to become fully human. That's the main focus on the book and the entire first 9 volumes. She wants to become human, hence her haste to help her loved one and escape to Zalem (supposedly she could become human there).

3. I don't believe the movie gains or is any better because of Alita being full CG. The original actress has already a fair resemblance to the heroine and I feel, since here the focus in on the relationship, we could totally get by with a human actress with CG only for the body and some action scenes. Making her all CG and the whole "hard-body" vs "full humans" doesn't really come to play in the books and it shouldn't have been the focus here either.

The entire universe consists of people changing or interchanging parts for mechanics or vice-versa in order to survive, for money or just to win. That's the whole nitty gritty truth about Zalem and Gunnm and here the movie portraits that more as a happy go lucky Rio favela which, to any fan, just isn't the case.

In spite all this, the movie works. It's a great narrative and a much better alternative than other female leading super-hero movies we've seen in recent years. I'm looking at you Captain Marvel!

A most pleasing three out of five!