Teenage Wasteland: 'Alita: Battle Angel' Doesn't Quite Earn Its Wings
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, James Cameron worked for Roger Corman, the king of fast-and-cheap exploitation moviemaking. But in the flaming nightmare dystopia of A.D. 2019 Los Angeles, he now takes so long to make movies that the three-to-10-year lifespans of Hollywood trends scarcely trouble him. Case in point: The Cameron-co-written-and-produced — but Robert-Rodriguez-directed — Alita: Battle Angel, which the King of the World first announced his intention to make some 20 years ago.
It's a feast for the artificially enlarged eyes, this thing, but who knows what it might've looked like had it come out back then? Probably the 1999 hard sci-fi landmark with which shares a cinematographer, Bill Pope, and some obvious Asian antecedents — without any Asian cast members. A generation on, remains the most complete and widely dispersed cinematic expression of cyberpunk, wherein humankind and its digital tools are increasingly indivisible. 's big ideas were as indelible as its set pieces, which makes it a good yardstick for measuring the ways in which disappoints.
