Alita: Battle Angel

Set several centuries in the future, the abandoned Alita is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Ido, a compassionate cyber-doctor who takes the unconscious cyborg Alita to his clinic. When Alita awakens, she has no memory of who she is, nor does she have any recognition of the world she finds herself in. As Alita learns to navigate her new life and the treacherous streets of Iron City, Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious past.

I'm unfamiliar with the Japanese manga called Gunnm, of which Alita: Battle Angel is based on. I feel like I should have done a little bit of research into the manga in order to maybe have a better understanding of the story, characters, etc. Alita: Battle Angel is light on plot, but heavy in the stylized action. This made for a visually stunning, but somewhat confusing movie. It didn't help that the movie ended on a cliffhanger. I wasn't expecting to have every single detail about the story spelled out over the course of the movie, but I do think there should have been a bit more for the audience to understand, especially those - such as myself - who've never read nor heard of the original source material. For instance, there's a discussion about a war that happened 300 years prior to the movies events unfolding. I would have liked to get just a small amount of info on what that war was about. 

That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed it a lot. However, I do wish more time was spent developing the story and focusing on the world-building instead of on the action and setting the movie up for the next movie. I did enjoy the performances, particularly that of Rosa Salazar as Alita, and Keean Johnson as Hugo. I liked the character of Dr. Ido, played by the masterful Christoph Waltz, but again, I felt there was something missing.

Overall, I would actually still recommend Alita: Battle Angel. It's still a very fun movie. As far as manga/anime live action adaptations go, this was far better than Ghost in the Shell or even the live action Death Note. Also, I unintentionally saw this in 3D (wasn't paying attention to the ticket I bought). I didn't think 3D really added anything to the movie. So far, the only 3D movies I've ever seen where the technology was effectively used was Avatar and Life of Pi.