Do not bother seeing this movie. It was a colossal disappointment and utter waste of my time.

Wow! This looks like a great video game! Wait. It's a movie? Never mind.

Before I attempt to explain why, I feel it is important to note that I have not read any of the Manga (Japanese comic books) and knew nothing about the characters and story before seeing a preview for this movie over six months ago. Perhaps it will appeal to an audience who fully understands the story.

Speaking of previews, here's a big shout out to my son for being smarter than his old man. When we first saw the preview, I excitedly turned to Timmy, grabbed his arm, and said, 'We have to see that!" He shrugged and said, "I don't know dad. Maybe." Then every subsequent time we saw a preview, I continued to ask, "Are you sure you don't want to see this?"

He was indeed sure... and he was completely right. I wish I would have listened to him and saved the $10 and two hours of my life. Thinking I was smarter than my teenage son, I went to see this movie by myself. Big mistake. Even seeing it in a fancy Dolby theater could not make this movie worth my time.

For the uninitiated, many video games have "cutscenes". Cutscenes are mini-movies that pop up at different times during the game (usually before or after an action packed mission) to help tell the story behind the game you are playing. Although some are very deep and detailed, there is no way I would sit down and watch a series of video game cutscenes spliced together. That is of course unless someone compiled these cutscenes and packaged them as a movie called Alita: Battle Angel.

A random example of a cutscene. Pretty cool for 2 minutes... not 120.

If that were to happen, I would see it... and then promptly be really pissed that Hollywood tricked me into watching them. That is basically what this movie was. It was a disjointed and hard to follow series of spliced together scenes that made little sense and provided very few thrills.

Don't get me wrong, the animation for this film is spectacular. But that is part of the problem. The filmmakers decided to make Alita look animated while most of the other characters were real. It felt like a more violent version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit than a real sci-fi action movie. Because she looked so cartoonish, I could never really get into any of the fight scenes. Once again, it was like watching someone play a really advanced version of Streetfighter. Although it looked cool, the fact that it was so unrealistic made it quite boring to me. For some reason, watching Youtube videos of other people playing a video game is very popular with teenagers today. Perhaps that is the audience the producers were going for. But it definitely was not me or the friends I envision when I write these reviews.

Now this is how you mix animation and reality.

Another huge problem was that the movie wasn't even quite bad enough for me to have any fun ranting about it. It stirred no passion in me in either direction. It is an incomplete movie that is simply... "meh". I wish I could rant about the fact that I had no clue why any character was behaving the way he/she/it was, but I simply don't care. It seems silly to get emotionally caught up in video game cutscenes.

My anger has little to do with the movie and much to do with the way it was advertised. This movie should have been a series of shorts on Youtube or the cutscenes for a sensational video game. Advertised as an action movie focusing on melee battles, it was more about a futuristic and incredibly brutal sport played on roller skates called Rollerball*... oops I mean Motorball.

This game has the best graphics! Oh yeah. Forgot about that whole movie thing again.

Another thing that would normally illicit an irrationally emotional rant from me is the fact that the movie has no ending. I'm actually quite shocked that the creators did not end with a cheesy black screen filled with the words "... to be continued". It was terrible. And yet, I did not care at all. There is no way I would see a sequel to this and I did not care how this one ended. In my mind, it ends with some Youtuber finishing the final mission after this last cutscene, taking pictures of the after the game credits to add to his Instagram story, and then celebrating with some Hotpockets that his mom made him.

Geeky Dad's Movie Guide

I wish I were asleep instead of watching this.
I didn't care enough to put the effort into rolling my eyes.
I should have left and looked at my phone.
My kids were smarter than me and did not attend.
There is no reason for a person who has not read the Manga to see this (perhaps those who already know the story could enjoy it... or maybe it just universally sucks).

*My apologies to Rollerball for including you in a review of a terrible movie that ripped off your sport. If you have not seen the 1975 version of Rollerball starring James Caan, watch that instead of this video game cutscene nonsense.

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