Alita, ángel de combate

This feature deals with the possibility of full cybernetic replacement of the frail human body and the effects this may have on society and the individual. What kind of value would be placed on human life? What capabilities do you build into a machine body? Can a human brain thus sustained, have a soul? There is plenty of action and even a love interest. It's an anime' classic that should be required viewing for any anime' fan. And a great starter for anyone wishing to try anime'. Be advised, though an animated feature, "Gunnm" is graphicly violent. It is NOT a cartoon. No cute bunnys. "Gunnm" (Battle Angel) is an incredibly well animated adaptation of a popular Manga (Japanese Comic Book Style). The only drawback is that their is only one and apparently no plans to continue the work in Anime'. The Manga however... continues.

Can't help but think that the English title "Battle Angel Alita" is probably just a wimp out for "Lolita". Remind me, eyeballs should be *smaller* than fists, right? That said, Battle Angel is thankfully free of teeny sex, although the ubiquitous brief glimpse of nekkid adult lady is pubic hair free, which I always find quite disturbing.

The animation is fine, although the scale of characters varies wildly, with Alita shrinking to almost Tinkerbelle proportions in some shots. Also, gravity seems to have a particularly tenuous hold on our little protagonist (even for anime!) and she does spend a fair bit of time just staring wide eyed.

Voice talent in the English dub is par for the course for anime, i.e. pretty dire. Alita at least has a distinctive cutesy mock-English timbre. The baddies are all instantly identifiable by their voices, which is frankly insulting and doesn't help to convince sceptics (or me, to be honest) that anime is more than a kiddie cartoon gone rabid.

There's some attempt at characterisation among the protagonists, but a fifty something minute runtime isn't enough time to expand on one fall/redemption story, let alone three or four. In fact, the whole thing is wrapped up and ended very abruptly in the last few minutes. It feels forced and unfinished, and smacks of series pilot.

Still, it was clearly a classy bit of animation before the translators got their hands on it. As usual, I'm left with the feeling that it's an opportunity wasted, and that a subtitled version would probably be much more enjoyable - as is definitely the case with Akira.

This was simply an amazing piece of artwork. This movie had the potential to be right up there next to Akira and Ghost in the Shell. Unfortunately there's just way too much left out, leaving you with a feeling that you've been conned out of a great movie. Gally (the main chick / hero) is the most beautiful anime babe out there. Overall, it's a movie an anime fan will like, but will long for more.... Find the comic books for more.

You can really tell by watching this film that the source material it is based on is really excellent. The story is a fine and compelling one, that is filled with fantasy elements and is set in a sort of future post-apocalyptic world. Because of this fact, I'm also positive of it that the James Cameron version of this movie called "Battle Angel" is going to be absolutely great.

This animated movie version is also a good one but unfortunately also heavily flawed.

The biggest problem with the movie is that it's very short, with as a result things get rushed. Also every sequence feels incredibly short. Every time you think you're going to get to see a big long fight sequence, it's already over again. It also makes the storytelling disjointed at times. Villains are keep getting introduced throughout the movie, until you finally start to loose interested at who is actually supposed to be the biggest and main villain of the movie. Some characters really made a redundant impression and they did not got the treatment they obviously deserved. The movie is also over before you know it, with a sort of an incomplete ending that will also give you an unsatisfied feeling.

The storytelling and build-up really isn't the greatest within this movie, although that isn't anything too uncommon for a Japanese anime, it still is a bit worse than acceptable in this case. The movie really gave me the feeling it had so much more potential, if it only had a better budget and production time span. It now unfortunately never reaches the level of true excellence and certainly is not among the top Japanse anime's.

Nevertheless the movie has plenty of qualities that make this a watchable one. The story is one of them, even though it's potential isn't fully used. The imaginary futuristic world and concepts within this movie are just so fine. It also has a fine love-story, that however also gets very rushed in the movie. The short action within the movie was also fine, which was mainly thanks to those awesome looking cyborgs with each their own special fighting powers and weapons. The movie is also filled with plenty of gore.

It's a certainly good watchable movie but still I would wait for the James Cameron movie version if I were you.

7/10

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The movie is based on a manga by Yukito Kishiro, which is generally seen as one of the better manga's out there.

For the unknowing: A manga is essentially a comic, japan-style. Most of the drawing is in black and white, quite in contrast to the western style comics. The drawing style however is a lot more realistic, save for the faces, than western comics. The faces are caricatures of how they would really look, but, this makes that feelings are conveyed a lot better than any western comic ever can. As it is stated in a Gunnm (or Battle Angel Alita outside of Japan) review, you can see in an instant how Alita is feeling, and the same goes for a lot of other characters.

Here comes the difference between a manga and an anime: Manga is Japanese style comic, Anime is Japanese style animation (mind you, NOT cartoon!). The difference is often forgotten, but should be pointed out.

Anyway, back to the anime: Gunnm is a 60 minute adaptation of the first 2 graphic novels of the comic. The movie is roughly divided in half, although the story flows through entirely. I can say beforehand: the movie is a very WEAK adaptation of the books. Nothing more, nothing less. It has been westernized too much. The character Chiren doesn't even appear in the books, and the big guy Alita defeats twice has an entirely different role (and not for the better).

The movie has been westernized to much in the sense that is has been simplified. Add a character tehre, make it quasi a double love story, add some fights and you're done. The entire path of discovery of Alita is left out (her fighting style, the Panzer Kunst, is essential to what thrives her to live on and discover where she's from, but the concept is entirely left out of the movie).

On itself, you can call the movie okay, but when you've read the books, it simply doesn't reach the level of the latter.

All in all, the animation is good, even very good. In terms of visual quality it ranks up right next to Ghost in the Shell in my books, while not being as realistic and dark, the fluent movement is very good while still remaining in the spirit of anime (watch the documentary on the Animatrix DVD to know what i mean with that).

The English voices are very much out of place, they are way too excited for the situations they're in, as if they were doing voices for any pokemon movie. That's what really brings down the movie, please try and watch it in Japanese with English subtitles if possible. English just doesn't cut it, but that goes for virtually every anime every dubbed in English.

To sum it up: This movie is a good 1 hour watch, and some may even want to watch it more. However, there's a lot of things that bring the movie down, especially when you;ve read the manga first.

If you watched this movie, buy the manga (starting with the first one of course, there are 14 translated graphic novels as of today) and read it, you'll be hooked. If you do it the other way around you'll only be disappointed.