Parents' Guide to

Alita: Battle Angel

By Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 14+

Big effects, lifeless characters in sci-fi action tale.

Movie PG-13 2019 122 minutes
Alita: Battle Angel Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 12+

Based on 81 parent reviews

dvkeys
dvkeys Adult
May 26, 2020
age 10+

Absolutely Amazing Movie

This movie was utterly amazing for the following reasons: 1) The plot was coherent and well executed. The character arcs were interwoven very skillfully. 2) The graphics were amazing and realistic - effectively transporting us to a fictional dystopian future. 3) The acting was believable and evoked empathy / enmity for the characters and truly brought the viewer into the movie. 4) The movie illustrated enduring life lessons. The scene where she literally offered him her heart was nothing short of brilliant and touching for even the most hardened of 'chick flick' haters. 5) It was an excellent balance of action and romance. I could continue, but you get the idea. Two thumbs waaaaay up on this movie.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
3 people found this helpful.
zedcellvx490
zedcellvx490 Adult
June 6, 2020
age 12+

Underrated.

The critics are so out of touch with the public on this, Alita has to be the most underrated film of 2019 .
2 people found this helpful.
See all 81 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL, it's the 26th century, and the world has been devastated by "The Fall." Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) rummages through a scrapyard and finds a cyborg girl with an intact brain. He brings her back to his lab and gives her a new body, calling her "Alita" (Rosa Salazar). She's instantly drawn to a boy named Hugo (Keean Johnson), as well as to a violent sport called Motorball. Hugo secretly works for shady businessman Vector (Mahershala Ali), helping sabotage the professional Motorball matches; Hugo hopes to earn enough money to get to the utopian sky city of Zalem. As Alita begins to learn more about her past and discovers her fighting abilities, she enters a Motorball tryout. But the evil Nova has ordered her killed. Can Alita avoid an army of attacking cyborgs while saving the day?

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (81):
Kids say (69):

This juggernaut-sized sci-fi movie mechanically rehashes a huge collection of genre clichés while bashing its way through an onslaught of visual effects, bad dialogue, and dull, lifeless characters. Co-written by James Cameron and directed by Robert Rodriguez, Alita: Battle Angel feels lost in a bubble; it's clueless about the real world, about real emotions, or about any other, grindingly similar movies that have come out in the real world (Elysium, Ghost in the Shell, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Ready Player One, Mortal Engines, etc.). It's less like the characters are making decisions than they're being pushed through an automatic computer program. The movie has state-of-the-art visual effects, but they aren't enough to rescue Alita from seeming like a visual effect, rather than a character, all the way through.

The other characters aren't human enough themselves to reflect her supposed humanity. Perhaps worse, she's sexualized in an unsettling way, a little like the famous Maria robot in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, but creepier. Overall, Alita: Battle Angel seems to have practically nothing to say. Not even the post-apocalyptic setting appears to be warning humanity about anything in particular. Rodriguez' direction is competent, of course, and the action scenes are well-executed (except for one too many scenes of actors running through crowds and shoving extras aside), but the project isn't really much more than an empty, noisy, soulless, vaguely unpleasant special effects extravaganza.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about Alita: Battle Angel's violence. Does the fact that it's relatively bloodless and nonrealistic affect its impact? Why or why not?

  • Is Alita presented as a sexual being? Is she sexualized or objectified? What kind of body image is represented?

  • What's the appeal of the post-apocalyptic genre? What does it try to teach us? Do you think this movie is trying to teach viewers something in particular -- or warn them against something?

  • What does the movie have to say about social classes? Are classes meant to be different and separate? What keeps people from sharing with each other?

  • Do you think this movie is a good example of female empowerment? Is there a cost for the main character's power and freedom? Do you think the characters' relationships are healthy? Honest?

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