When I’m in a truly bad mood, about the state of the world or just the state of myself, traditionally uplifting movies (or music, or TV) don’t cut it for me. It’s not the movies’ fault, necessarily; it’s the act of pressing play on even a feel-great movie like His Girl Friday or Toy Story 2 that nags at me as overly self-conscious. It’s hard for the movie to have its desired effect when I’m giving it such a personal, specific mandate to make me feel better – a truly impossible form of video on demand. Instead, I need something that activates my lizard brain, something that goes straight to the pleasure center of my imagination, rather than engaging directly with my emotions. In recent years, that movie is Alita: Battle Angel.
Part of it is probably a form of penance for slightly underrating Alita when it came out. I gave this Robert Rodriguez-directed, James Cameron-produced (and co-written!) manga adaptation a measuredly positive review back in early 2019, clearly still processing my surprise, even confusion, that it was so much better than most were expecting. Another half-dozen viewings later, many on sick days, have worn away my initial resistance to the movie’s slightly distended shape, corny dialogue and jostled-together plot. The movie follows the reawakening of Alita (a digitally augmented Rosa Salazar), a cyborg whose body has been trashed and whose memory has been erased. Partially repaired by the kindly but overprotective Dr Ido (Christoph Waltz), Alita eventually explores the dystopian Iron City, takes up a violent cyborg sport called Motorball, becomes a well-paid bounty hunter, falls in love with a human who yearns to escape for a better life, and rediscovers her past as a powerful warrior.
It’s a lot, and also, in its way, just the right amount. At a time when sci-fi and fantasy films often feel stingy, holding back key characters or set pieces for sequels or budget restrictions, Alita boasts Cameron’s characteristic generosity – like his better-loved Avatar movies, the frame is often filled with inventive digital characters and sets – and Rodriguez’s boundless energy. Salazar’s Alita is a plucky badass whose earnestness in both love and war makes her a lovable resident of the uncanny valley, anchoring the overstuffed action. She’s also, as others have explored with greater expertise than mine, readable as a trans hero – a woman who finds her agency by eventually switching to a different, better-fitting body.
Maybe that’s what makes this particular entry in the digital-cinema canon of gonzo sci-fi (fellow inductees: your Avatars, your Jupiter Ascendings, your Star Wars prequels) seem especially contemporary and vibrant, in addition to the excitement of its colors, designs and rapid pace. Released halfway through the first Trump term and rewatched heavily during a global pandemic, Alita has been accidentally battle-tested by real-world horrors. Like so much big-budget sci-fi, it predicts a bleak future while also making that future look, well, if not exactly fun, certainly a place where the pure-of-heart can still survive and find themselves, possibly through murderously extreme sports. Though some of the film’s side characters will be brutally dispatched, there’s something touching about how ridiculously extra they all are – and there’s catharsis in seeing sweet-natured, curious, open-hearted Alita go absolutely nuts beating them down in a barfight (a Rodriguez specialty that gets a great sci-fi makeover here, complete with literal junkyard dogs). It’s not as bloody or unsparing as an ultraviolent thriller, nor as gentle as a children’s fantasy. It’s something the inner child, outer adult and forever dork can all agree on – perfect for representing a character who occupies a liminal space between childlike wonder and embattled badass.
So yes, my feelgood movie for when humanity lets me down is Alita: Battle Angel, a movie where much of humanity hangs out in a city-sized junkpile. And though I don’t press play with this aspect particularly in mind, it’s nice to imagine a future where things have gone terribly wrong (that just seems realistic at this point) yet unforeseen triumphs still emerge from the tech-nightmare garbage heap. There are plenty of more time-honored films that take a more direct path to temporary bliss, including sci-fi movies better-equipped to restore faith in humanity. (I know many people were appropriately moved by Arrival, opening days after Trump’s 2016 victory; I love that one, to.) But for me, it’s hard to beat the comfort of a weird, fantastical world populated by sci-fi creations that hustle and bustle with such clamor that they threaten to spill out of the widescreen frame. Alita may be cobbled together from the parts of other movies as well as its famous source material, but it’s a beautiful salvage job. That’s been a huge part of my life with movies: turning trash into treasured memories.
