Alita: Failing Angel

You know I want to find the positives in every movie. You know I root for them. You know I want them to succeed, and I'll give a great rating to even the silliest of movies if they made me feel something positive.

But I can't do that for Alita: Battle Angel.

I haven't had such a miserable time in a theater in...I can't even remember.

Here's a review that says a lot better than I can.

How did this movie make me feel?
Badly.
I hated it.
I was disappointed, disgusted, and insulted. I haven't seen a movie in recent years that has had me so insulted as a woman as Alita.

Let's chat.

The Positives:
The art in this movie is fantastic. Visually, it was stunning. I don't know that I would feel the same way on a small screen, but in IMAX, it was like the first time I saw Avatar. The story didn't stand up to the visuals there, either, but man...so pretty.

Rosa Salazar, who plays the title character, killed it. The only time I felt anything potentially positive in this movie, it was because of her. The way her emotions translated through the CGI, and with almost no story to work with, is worth noting.

The Negatives:
Heaven help me. The negatives. I don't want to rant and rave for pages, so I'll try to pick out what I hated most. This might become spoilery - you've been warned.

1. More important than anything else. The reason I will never forgive this movie or allow it to move forward. The reason I hate it with everything in my being...*spoiler?* they kill a puppy.
   
   For no reason. It serves no purpose. It's meant to be an inciting incident to make Alita who she is, but they could have done that with ANYTHING, and they chose something innocent and sweet.  It disgusts me. It makes me want to have words with the writer and director. I honestly don't respect them. This isn't John Wick. You aren't serving a purpose. That's gratuitous death, and you're wicked.
   
   
2. It's boring. Yawn-worthy. I cringed.
   
   
3. I hated Hugo. More than anything else, I hated Hugo. He's meant to be a love interest, but I've never seen such a cliche, trope-filled, teen angst love interest in a movie that was meant to be an epic sci-fi adventure. If I had to guess, this boy found a book called Twilight, read it, didn't understand it, and proceeded to behave how HE thought a romeo should behave.
   
   He sucked (not the actor, the character). He was misogynistic. He was a villain. He did horrible, awful things with no guilty conscience until his libido was awakened by someone similar to those he'd assaulted. He was wicked. It's been a long time since I have hated someone in a movie that I was supposed to love this much (happens in books all the time). 
   
   He's a wannabe Aladdin, but it doesn't pan out. Alita tells him her favorite food is oranges, so he laughs at her and buys her chocolate. BECAUSE THAT'S ALL WOMEN KNOW HOW TO ENJOY FOOD, IS BY EATING CHOCOLATE. Why can't her favorite food be an orange? Why can't the citrus-zest be left well enough alone? No, we have to hit every trope in the history of cliche and give the girl chocolate - because he's such a hero. 
   
   He's selfish. Everything is about Hugo. Even when he appears to be caring about Alita, he's not. Down to the final minutes on screen, he's doing things for his own good, for his own care. Alita tries again and again to save him, to help him, to love him, but in the end, Hugo is for Hugo.
   
   SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER I've never cheered so hard when a character died. I was so happy, watching him plummet to the lower city. He deserved to die more than any other character in that movie, and I would almost consider seeing the next one just to watch something he isn't in. In fact, I cheered his death the way I cheered some of the most hated villains on Game of Thrones.
   
   
4. The way they treated Alita was an insult to women everywhere. No only is there the chocolate fiasco, but the way they interacted with her. This is a futuristic world, but maybe we've gone backwards in time when it comes to how we interact with females?
   
   
5. The villains. OH THE VILLAINS! It was sad. So sad. They were awkward, clunky, stupid, boring. They were entirely made of machinery, except their faces? I have no idea why they kept the faces. It made them silly. It didn't humanize them, but just made them laughable. Especially when one was so vain all he cared about was his face. Why? What purpose did his face serve? The main villain had a super creepy line "I'd rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven." 
   
   But he didn't live up to his hype. And the villain above him, saved for future films. We see him for one split second in the end - much like Thanos in the earliest Marvel movies - but he packs little punch, regardless of his star power.
   
   
6. Most of the acting.
   Aside from Rosa Salazar, pretty much everyone on the screen is a bumbling buffoon when it comes to their parts. They aren't believable, likely because of the script they had and the direction they were given. They don't believe it anymore than I do. They have to feel the oozing misogyny bleeding off the page. Whatever it is, it's not good.
   
   
7. It ends on a cliff hanger, which I expected when it dragged on and on to what felt like a climax.
   
   No joke. This movie is essentially two hours of backstory, finally reaching a moment you might care to watch, and then stopping in a dead halt. 

The Rating:
No rating. I can't give it a feather. It isn't worth one.

Final Verdict:
It's your choice, but I will never tell anyone I know to see Alita: Battle Angel.
The only way I'd see a sequel is if they learn how to handle Alita herself, stop insulting my intelligence, and give Hugo the pink slip.