Alita : Battle Angel

Un conte de science-fiction d'action raconté avec brio et avec cœur. Sa force motrice est l’Alita numérique, étonnamment le plus vivant des personnages. Super mignonne! Waltz, le gentil papa, est aussi très bien. J'aurais consacré plus de temps aux autres personnages, cela aurait aidé le film dans sa complexité dont il manque un peu. Et je ne parle pas seulement d'approfondir le personnage de Connelly la « super-milf » et d'autres personnages tout aussi importants, mais aussi de donner de l'espace à des personnages secondaires amusants comme le cowboy incarné par Fahey. Dans le scénario, il avait sûrement plus de place. Quoi qu'il en soit, le film alterne, comme sur des montagnes russes, émotions et actions spectaculaires et les combats avec la transformation de la jeune fille fragile en combattante ultime sont à couper le souffle. Satisfaction totale pour ma part et je le reverrais volontiers en Dolby Atmos ou en IMAX. Les Japonais vont adorer. (08/02/2019)

Défi cinéma – les genres : film d’action. Le tandem Rodriguez—Cameron nous offre des décors citadins très réussis, une Alita super mignonne, Christoph Waltz dans un rôle de héros exceptionnellement positif et la beauté glaciale de Jennifer Connelly. Un film d’action très plaisant. (18/05/2021)

Alita pushes computer acting to a new level, aided by a story whose straightforwardness and naivety (most painfully rising to the fore in the development of an extremely hollow romantic subplot) that have their charm, but it’s not enough for a two-hour film. I would rather suppose the basis of the film to be a young adult novel by an American author who loves Japanese culture and James Cameron films (at least the latter bit about James Cameron, who wrote the screenplay, is probably true), rather than a Japanese cyberpunk manga comic book. Christoph Waltz with a rocket-powered pickaxe, describing a martial art called Panzerkunst, philosophising about whether one can love a cyborg, and Mahershala Ali as Blade don't help much. Nevertheless, Rodriguez has not been so focused in his storytelling for a long time. Even more so than in the patient building (or revealing) of the world from the lowest floor, this can be seen in the uncluttered action sequences with very complex choreography (I would not shy away from a comparison with Ready Player One). I wouldn’t be surprised if it is such a failure that we won’t see a follow-up, but I also wouldn’t mind if a sequel was made. 65% (08/02/2019)

I wasn't expecting much, but I was hoping it would turn out to be a fun and nice looking piece of crap. And in the end, it did. Alita probably won't appear on my list of the best films of the year, but the two hours in the cinema went by faster and more pleasantly than I would have guessed a few weeks ago. The visual effects and production design are top-notch and it's a really good watch, but this sci-fi epic gets the most points for its heroine. Rosa Salazar is great as Alita, she's both endearingly freaky and spectacularly deadly at the right moments. Robert Rodriguez keeps a surprisingly low profile and his action scenes are lucid and milk Hollywood's current technological capabilities to the max. The whole thing may be a little cheesy and 90s in both the good and bad sense of the word, but they are clearly aware of that. A lot of the themes aren't fleshed out enough (and shouldn't have been) and at times Alita turns into a sci-fi romance for teenage girls, but it still works. Personally, I had no problem tuning in on the same wavelength as Rodriguez and Cameron and enjoying the fact that it's big, beautiful, action-packed and fun. And basically, that was enough to satisfy me. (13/02/2019)

A tarted-up lot of nothing that’s nice to look at. The visuals are unsurprisingly superb, Rodríguez’s direction is surprisingly solid and focused, and the robotic/computer generated main character is very likeable. I wouldn’t have a problem with it overall, if, somewhere in the middle, I hadn’t realised that the film not only wasn’t moving towards the central clash, but that it would also elegantly avoid it. To be continued, basically. (08/02/2019)