Alita: Battle Angel was originally supposed to be released in December but Fox wisely moved it away from the stiff competition that dominated the holiday season. Unfortunately, it looks like the live-action anime adaptation could struggle this weekend if the mixed reviews are anything to go by.
As of right now, it has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 59% with an average rating of 5.9/10 based on 142 counted reviews (84 of those are Fresh and 58 are Rotten).
"Alita: Battle Angel's story struggles to keep up with its special effects," reads the Critics Consensus, "but fans of futuristic sci-fi action may still find themselves more than sufficiently entertained." Ultimately, it does sound like fans of the genre will get a lot out of this one but a little too much sequel bating and a weak story seemingly holds it back from greatness.
We've rounded up a selection of reviews from a number of noteworthy outlets and you can check out the list in its entirety by clicking on the "View List" button below.
What’s all too clear to see — and it’s a bummer — is that Alita, Battle Angel isn’t really a movie at all. Rather, it’s a fragment, a framework for a sequel, or a series of sequels, that it’s hard to imagine any audience demanding. Even those moments when the movie rouses itself to cinematic vigor are followed by padding and recycling. Cameron has been trying to get Alita’s story on screen for two decades. No wonder it feels wobbly and worked-over. Back then it might have played like gangbusters. But now, after a deluge of comic book epics and other CGI-filled sci-fi fantasies, the movie feels like it’s way past its sell-by date. Alita: Battle Angel looks ready to rock, but time has sucked the life out of the party. [2.5/5]
SOURCE: Rolling Stone
In terms of likable characters, though, Alita is pretty much it. Dad’s way too overprotective, she has the worst boyfriend ever, and Ali’s Vector fails at being the fun villain this film desperately needs. Also, the narrative does Alita’s newfound agency no favors: She ultimately embraces her inner warrior, but too often she makes decisions with the onus of helping male characters rather than herself. It’s those small details that undermine the positives of “Battle Angel,” where a super-cool artifice can’t mask its inherent struggles for a wonder girl to take wing.
SOURCE: USA Today
The film’s rock’em sock’em rumbles aren’t hollow, nor is the conversation about how violence permeates a society. Cameron and Rodriguez have always dealt with heady material in their films, and ‘Alita’ ruminates on what exactly makes for a hero, and just how dangerous a world is that rests itself on violent impulses and self-preservation. The futuristic Iron City at its center is cool to look at from one angle, but Dr. Ido is quick to mention just how malicious it can be. Alita lays out her empathetic groundwork early and rarely diverges from it. How wonderful to have a hero that always follows through with what she fights for. How wonderful to have a blockbuster that aspires for so much and mostly delivers on those ambitions. [B+]
SOURCE: The Playlist
What should have been a thrilling CG spectacular is needlessly hamstrung by a chaotic narrative, bloodless antagonists, and an over-confident franchise hope. [2/5]
SOURCE: HeyUGuys
In the end, though, it’s an over-stuffed world but one that I would gladly return to. Of course, 20th Century Fox is hoping the same thing. Since a certain buckethead burst on to the scene in 2008, every studio movie with an above-average budget is trying to build a franchise. Alita: Battle Angel is no different, with a climax designed to set up a sequel. (Including the reveal of a well-known actor I won’t spoil as the villain pulling all the strings.) But for the first time in a long time, I’m happy to stay on this wild, visually dazzling ride for a few more stops. [B+]
SOURCE: Collider
There's certainly fun to be had with Alita: Battle Angel, though. While I personally wasn't a fan of the script the action is satisfying if that's what you're after. Rodriguez proves he's still a near-unmatched visual storyteller, a talent we'd almost forgotten he had after his years of passion projects on the cheap. Any sort of script doctoring to make the characters feel like they mattered would have gone a very long way. [3/5]
SOURCE: Nerdist
Cameron and Rodriguez leave some key characters and unresolved plot points dangling at the end of Alita, brazenly signaling their sequel-minded, franchise-primed intentions. Their chutzpah is admirable, but perhaps, on this occasion, a little misplaced.
SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter
Away from the Motorball track, people talk and talk and talk about some great war. And there is a Big Bad Guy who spends this movie teasing toward his central role the next movie. Alita has a powerful robot body, and then she gets an even more powerful robot body, so there’s some character development. A better version of this movie would’ve kept its mind on the game. Better title: Rollerblade Runner. [C]
SOURCE: Entertainment Weekly
“Alita: Battle Angel” may feel, for better and worse, like a Cameron creative property, but it also can’t escape the thin, spiritless air of a delegated assignment.
SOURCE: Variety
Rodriguez must have planned to answer these questions in a sequel, but don’t hold your breath. His film is probably too rushed, unfocused and tonally erratic to attract an audience, in which case the wait for an “Alita: Battle Angel” sequel will be even longer than the wait for an “Avatar” one.
SOURCE: The Wrap
Best enjoyed for the fun, slick action and the astonishing, super-expressive realisation of Alita herself, because elsewhere it’s cyberpunk business as usual, marred by some sloppy plotting. [3/5]
SOURCE: Empire Online
Impressive VFX and bursts of action can’t mask the fact that this is a tonally confused start for a sci-fi franchise hopeful, made up of scrap parts you’ve seen put to better use elsewhere. [2/5]
SOURCE: Total Film
The film does end on a bit of sequel bait (with a surprise cameo we won’t spoil), but at this point, I don’t really see the story continuing. If it does, I think future Alita movies would need new writers who focused more on her story, rather than over-explaining all of the manga’s nuances in between giant Motorball action sequences. Salazar’s Alita is the best thing here, and it’s too bad this movie didn’t do her justice.
SOURCE: io9
Alita: Battle Angel sheds (or ignores?) any need for coherence anywhere except in what’s projected up on the screen, and actually benefits from that commitment to action. As Alita’s circumstances grow more dire, so do the consequences, pushing the limits of the film’s PG-13 rating about as far as they’ll go. The sight of the gargantuan cities is juxtaposed with individual violence as limbs are ripped from bodies, and the faster the blood gets pumping, the more galvanizing are the heights to which Alita climbs.
SOURCE: Polygon
Alita: Battle Angel is a film with Imax spectacle and big effects. But for all its scale, it might end up being put on for 13-year-olds as a sleepover entertainment. It doesn’t have the grownup, challenging, complicated ideas of Ghost in the Shell. A vanilla dystopian romance. [3/5]
SOURCE: Guardian