Alita: Battle Angel

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This movie is proof that Rotten Tomatoes is full of baloney. Don't listen to the critics! This movie is fantastic! I've heard other people say the film's main fault is there is too much story, and it moves kind of fast, but I didn't think that. I thought the story flowed pretty well, and was easy to follow. The character designs for the cyborgs are super creative. There are no bad actors in this film. Mahershala Ali as the villain is a particularly stand out performance. He gives such a subtle performance, to the point where you know he's lying and has bad intentions, but you don't blame characters for believing him and joining him. He's just the right amount of manipulative. He reminded me of an evil version of Morpheus from "The Matrix."  The action sequences alone are worth the price of admission (go see it in 3D).  There was one sequence involving a futuristic gladiator match, and not only are the action and visuals  impressive, the background commentary is hilarious! There is definitely a lot of heart put into this movie.  A lot of people, when the trailer came out, were complaining about the main character's "big anime eyes'' and how distracting they were, but I only noticed it in a couple of scenes, and I blame that on the camera angle. Most of the time, I didn't notice or care. The MPAA is a strange thing with how they rate movies. The film is PG-13, but there is so much hacking off of limbs (to the point where even "Star Wars" would call it excessive) and so many other moments of graphic violence that made my jaw drop that they got away with it in a PG-13 movie. It's because most of the violence involves cyborgs, so I guess that because they're not completely human, it's ok? But if it were the same exact movie, but everyone was human, this would definitely be R. The movie also does not feel complete, because it isn't. They were so sure this would get a sequel that they didn't focus on wrapping up the story, and instead have a "to be continued". I'm so sick of that, because if this movie doesn't get a sequel, it was kind of a waste.
Grade: A-    9/10   4/5