Alita: Battle Angel Review - 7 Ups & 3 Downs

10. Down: Juvenile Humor

With entries such as the entirety of the Spy Kids franchise or The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D in his filmography, Robert Rodriguez is certainly no stranger to juvenile humor. In fact, one could argue it was kind of his bread-and-butter in the early-to-mid-2000s.

And while it's kind of endearing to see how much Rodriguez is still the same creative force behind the camera regardless of budget or targeted age demographic, there are some moments in Alita: Battle Angel which get completely bogged down by some poorly timed attempts at childish or generic humor.

This isn't all the time by any means, as there are some solid gags and moments of visual humor that really work for it. But layering jokes about the size of Alita's breasts (and the inherent judging of her developmental age by them) is more than little ill-advised. In a film that works so hard to turn Alita into an icon of female empowerment that can stand alongside the likes of prior James Cameron characters like Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor, a throwaway line like this undercuts it so hard it is disorienting.

Similarly, one of the film's best action sequences features a pair of in-story-commentators whose role is kind of joyfully goofy for the first few minutes. But once the sequence has gone on for more like ten minutes and these commentators are still droning on with these same cheesy one-liners, it is actively detracting from the sequence and the film itself.