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For how long have I been waiting to see this movie? 10 years? 15 years? Indeed, when I was kid, I bought the comic-books with my brother, I really loved them, and when I heard that James Cameron would adapt them, it sounded really awesome. However, somehow, the guy got completely obsessed with 'Avatar' and it seemed that this project would be stuck in production hell forever. Fortunately, Robert Rodriguez came on board and even if he wouldn't have been my first choice as a director, I still wanted to check the damned thing, in spite of the negative hype it received even before it was released. Well, eventually, I have to admit it, it didn't turn out to be a masterpiece, but it was far from being a failure either and I enjoyed most of it. Indeed, even though it felt rather derivative by now, the world created was interesting enough and visually quite impressive but I wouldn't expect less from Cameron. Above all, they completely nailed the main character. Indeed, that was probably what bothered me the most with the recent US adaptation of 'Ghost in the Shell', not the fact that Scarlet Johansson might have been miscast, but the fact that they completely ruined the Major as a character. With this movie, however, Alita was just as fascinating as she was in the comic-book. Not only the way she looked worked very well (the controversy about her big eyes turned out to be completely unjustified after all) but, above all, she was just so charismatic, complex, and completely faithfull to the comic-book. As pointed out by other critics, she should be remembered as one of the best CGI animated characters ever created alongside Gollum and Caesar. The rest of the cast was also fine, except for the kid who played Hugo who was rather weak and unconvincing. Concerning the story itself, it's a shame that they tried to adapt the first 4 comic-books as it turned out to be just too much material for 2 hours of running time. In fact, I believe that it would have worked better as a TV-show. As a result, everything was rushed and barely developed. For example, it was really cool that Alita became a bounty-hunter but, eventually, she didn't do any bounty-hunting at all. In my opinion, they should have spent most of the running time on this and keep the motorball for a possible sequel. However since the motorball is something quite iconic with this character, it was expected that they would bring it already but it should have had much more impact. I mean, right in the middle of her first and only game, she suddenly ran off to help her boyfriend which felt just so anticlimactic. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of it flaws, I still think it was a rather faithtfull adaptation and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you have been a long time fan of the comic-book like me.
7/10
