Alita: Battle Angel Review - 7 Ups & 3 Downs
2. Rodriguez Reclaims His Legacy
It is so wonderful to see Rodriguez delivering a film of this caliber again and clearly having such a blast while doing so.
He has always been a creative force defined by the vast variety his work can encompass. One year might see the release of a brand new Spy Kids sequel, while the very next year could see him releasing a hard-R-rated genre flick like Machete or Planet Terror. Which is what makes Alita feel so miraculous.
Not only has Rodriguez been able to preserve his distinctive voice in the transition to big-budget blockbuster filmmaking, but he's also preserved all of these idiosyncrasies and quirks that have defined him, weaponizing them in the film itself. Instead of having to inhabit a single genre, Alita: Battle Angel is essentially a noir, western, samurai, sci-fi epic. It sees Rodriguez distilling the essence of not only his storytelling gifts, but the gifts of those films that inspired him in the first place, and translating it all into this glorious piece of pulp.
As a result, you can have sequences that play like homages to his Spy Kids film right alongside moments that could have been taken straight out of Desperado, and have it all feel in service of a greater whole.