3.5/5 stars as Stand-alone.
1/5 stars as a remake of the manga.
The James Cameron release based on the 1990 graphic novel tells a very different tale which strips the meaning of the original work. And Yukito Kishiro's original graphic novel happens to be one of the best pieces of literature we have reviewed.
In the original story, humanity is split into two factions: one living life as usual in a sky-city floating above earth, while the other lives in a literal garbage & sewage pile below the sky-city - as a direct result of their waste. A doctor living in the sewage pile finds a functioning brain, and decides to attach robotic parts to bring this brain back to life in replacement of his dead cat - probably the only living companion he's had in his life.
In this sewage pile, human beings are forced to find not only a livelihood but also a life. After the doctor revives the brain as a young, innocent girl called "Alita", he does not choose to make her a romantic partner, nor a business partner, nor some other tool to advance his personal interest. He makes the conscious decision to let her live her own life - as a child, and free from his influences. To provide for this "family" of his, he works as a bounty hunter, killing criminals in their slum-world.
In the slum-world below, one of the most profitable businesses is the trade and sale of human and cyborg parts. As the environment is destroyed in a post-apocalyptic setting, so has human health - and one of the only ways to remain active, mobile, or self-sufficient is by replacing one's own human parts. If it is not possible to find usable human parts from the pile of waste thrown onto them by the inhabitants of the sky-city, one of the most direct ways is to steal it from a living human person. And here we are introduced to a world of organ-harvesting and a huge criminal industry. From beginning to end, Alita's original story is one of human hierarchy, oppression, and man-created despair.
During Alita's early life in the manga, she develops an interest for a boy around her age. This was not necessarily a romantic interest, but an interest in this boy's dream: a dream to one day become an inhabitant of the sky city. The boy was told by a trafficker that it was possible to pay his way into the sky city, and that all he really needed was money. While Alita is slowly discovering that the Doctor who gave her life is a bounty hunter, engaged in the dangerous profession of killing dangerous criminals, she also finds out that this boy is one of the criminal organ harvesters. This internal conflict of whether to help the boy reach his dream or to kill the boy as a criminal becomes a central part of the first arc.
Eventually, the boy saves up enough to go to the sky-city. However, before he finally embarks on the journey, his trafficker shows him packaged human organs - telling him that this would the be only form in which the boy could enter sky-city. In other words, the trafficking deal was never real: the sky-city inhabitants never wanted the boy whole; they'd rather have him split as human organs which they could use. Having sold out his morality for a scam, the boy's dreams are completely shattered, which leads him to come up with an even crazier solution: to simply climb to the sky-city through the waste-disposal ducts.
Of course, if it were that easy, the original graphic novel would not have been a masterpiece. During his climb, a defense system of rings roll down and shred the boy into pieces. This is where the boy says good-bye to Alita.
In the movie, all of that setting is changed. There is a sky-city, but there is no slum-world beneath it. The director has created a lovely little town with agriculture, bustling street-scene, lively teenagers who enjoy skateboarding, and a wealthy community. The doctor who revives Alita is surrounded by acquaintances, has an ex-wife, and is well-respected as an old professional of authority.
And Alita is no innocent child who has to experience the horrors of the world. Not only are there no horrors of the world, she is a sassy teenager who acts like an adopted child, someone who rebels against the doctor simply because she wants to find out her past and find out who she was. The story-arc with the boy of course is turned into a romance, in which they fall in love with each other basically at first sight on the streets, and bond over their love of skateboarding. Every set-up which was meant to explore humanity's dark sides as the world heads into a hierarchical future is destroyed, turning the movie into a nice teen romance of two skateboarders.
The movie uses amazing CGI effects to depict the futuristic skateboarding sport and Alita's fight scenes, but none of it has any depth. In the original manga, Alita fights to protect the doctor when he fails in his bounty-hunting. Alita fights to protect those victims who have had their organs ripped out in the streets by harvesters. In the movie, Alita fights because she is really good at fighting.
If the movie had completely been detached from the Alita brand, it had the potential to become a great movie. A cyborg girl comes back to life, discovers her past, falls in love with a boy who teaches her a popular sport, and defeats some of the dark powers looming in their society. All of that could be entertaining, and it would possibly have been lauded as a multi-faceted story.
Yet as an Alita-remake, the director has successfully removed any and all forms of social commentary from the original work. The ending says it all: Alita becomes a champion at the futuristic skateboarding sport, and dedicates her win to the boy she loves. And that's it.
We will undoubtedly review the graphic novel one day - which is a difficult task as it is a multi-volume creation. That said, being one of the best and most visionary graphic novels which comes before Mad Max, Elysium, Hunger Games, and Ghost in the Shell, we will certainly make our best attempt to present and review Gunnm: the original Alita series.
In conclusion, the film's greatest value may be in bringing more attention and awareness about the original manga. Unlike the graphic novel, it is unlikely that anyone will hail the movie as a masterpiece 30 years into our future - it certainly lacks the emotional richness of Cameron's previous works such as Titanic and Avatar. And it is surprising how all of the film's downfalls stem from a single change in setting and context: without the world of despair, crime, and organ-harvesting, Alita's battles are simply the journeys of a your typical 14 year old.