Alita: Battle Angel
Twentieth Century Fox | Release Date: February 14, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 49 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
24
Negative:
4
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
The PlaylistCory WoodroofFeb 13, 2019
Alita lays out her empathetic groundwork early and rarely diverges from it. How wonderful to have a hero that always follows through with what she fights for. How wonderful to have a blockbuster that aspires for so much and mostly delivers on those ambitions. Read full review
83
IndieWireMichael NordineJan 31, 2019
Alita: Battle Angel is [Rodriguez’s] best film since he brought Frank Miller’s graphic novel to the screen, a sci-fi epic that does something rare in an age of endless adaptations and reboots: lives up to its potential while leaving you wanting more. Read full review
80
The AtlanticDavid SimsFeb 14, 2019
True to its origins, Alita is a living cartoon of a film, which only makes its ridiculousness easier to absorb. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 11, 2019
If you’re in the mood for a movie like “Alita,” “Alita” is the movie you’re in the mood for. Read full review
80
CineVueMartyn ConterioFeb 4, 2019
Not without flaws, but nothing to get too worked up about, Alita: Battle Angel is cynicism-free, first-class popcorn entertainment spearheaded by a knockout performance from Salazar. A star is born. Read full review
80
IGNWilliam BibbianiJan 31, 2019
Alita: Battle Angel is Robert Rodriguez’s best film in many years. It’s an ambitious, impressive, visually spectacular production with great performances that make its strange world seem real. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyFeb 12, 2019
The film crams in so many plot lines that it risks being overstuffed but somehow stays true to its mesmerizing vision and emerges as a sci-fi success, if not a triumph. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 8, 2019
"Alita” is an action movie, and some of that is who-cares. But the bigger thing about this film is that it makes us think about humanness, what it means, what it is, and what it might be in the future. Read full review
70
SlateSam AdamsFeb 16, 2019
It’s goofy as hell and borderline inexcusable at times, but it’s also kind of glorious. Read full review
70
Film ThreatAlan NgFeb 14, 2019
If you approach Alita: Battle Angel like a standard action film, where you’re there just for the stunts, you will have a good time. The world created by James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez is visually stunning. Rosa Salazar is fantastic as Alita, and she shines in her mocap performance. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaFeb 1, 2019
The only reason any of this works at all is Salazar and, I hate to say it, those goddamned big eyes. They’re the windows to the soul, after all, and this ungainly, lurching cyborg of a would-be blockbuster has more of that than meets the eye. Read full review
67
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerFeb 14, 2019
Like its unstoppable heroine, Alita: Battle Angel is something strange and unique and special, built from the finest repurposed parts. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerFeb 1, 2019
Like so many expensive fantasies, Alita: Battle Angel feels burdened by dreams of a franchise that may never materialize. But if a series does come to pass, Rodriguez should stick around. However briefly, big-budget filmmaking has synced up with his playground aesthetic. Read full review
65
The VergeSamantha NelsonFeb 1, 2019
It’s a shame that the film doesn’t stand on its own, with a story as creative and engaging as its setting. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloFeb 14, 2019
The visual bonanza cooked up by Rodriguez, cinematographer Bill Pope and editors Stephen E. Rivkin and Ian Silverstein is enough to power through any narrative bumps with quickly paced action and bleak, yet colorful, imagery. Read full review
63
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonFeb 13, 2019
It’s a story with too many influences, no cohesion, no apparent narrative purpose. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoFeb 13, 2019
For all of Alita’s she-Pinocchio charm — and her Cameronian estrogen-charged badass-itude — she can’t quite carry the audience all the way across that pesky uncanny valley. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittFeb 12, 2019
For all its whiz-bang goodness, “Alita” is almost completely undone by its flawed script. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 12, 2019
Rodriquez nails the pacing – it’s slow enough to allow for character development (at least where Alita is concerned) but ramps up during the well-choreographed battle and chase sequences. Everything moves along fine…at least until the final few minutes when it becomes apparent that we’re about to be victimized by a story that requires multiple installments to play out. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)John SemleyFeb 11, 2019
Viewed in the despairing environment of the big-budget sci-fi blockbuster, Alita is likely to find a cult of core fans drawn in by the persuasive digital animation, and pick-and-choose, smorgasbord world-building. In the longview, though, it’s likely to enjoy much the same fate as 2000s cine-technological milestone Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. And that, perhaps, is the ultimate case of damning with faint, highly relative praise. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineJake ColeFeb 1, 2019
Battle Angel is by some distance the most entertaining of the recent crop of would-be franchise starters, exciting on its own merits while leaving just enough of its world tantalizingly unexplored to actually fuel our interest in wanting to see where its characters go from here. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottFeb 13, 2019
Director Robert Rodriguez and his crew do a magnificent job of world-creating, thanks to impressive technical wizardry. Actress Rosa Salazar also brings the lead character to life with sweet (though lethal) charm...It struggles under the weight of the rangy, multi-pronged narrative before effectively cheating moviegoers by leaving them with a cliffhanger ending. Read full review
60
EmpireDan JolinJan 31, 2019
Best enjoyed for the fun, slick action and the astonishing, super-expressive realisation of Alita herself, because elsewhere it’s cyberpunk business as usual, marred by some sloppy plotting. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushMatt SingerJan 31, 2019
Alita barely considers any of the existential questions about humanity that are typically central to this kind of sci-fi film. It’s just a slick action film. That is one way, at least, it does feel like a Robert Rodriguez movie. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 31, 2019
Alita: Battle Angel is a film with Imax spectacle and big effects. But for all its scale, it might end up being put on for 13-year-olds as a sleepover entertainment. It doesn’t have the grownup, challenging, complicated ideas of Ghost in the Shell. A vanilla dystopian romance. Read full review
58
Paste MagazineOktay Ege Kozak Feb 21, 2019
For fans of futuristic sci-fi/action, it should provide an initially engaging but ultimately forgettable experience. Still, coming from Cameron and Rodriguez, even “forgettable” deserves a look. Read full review
58
Original-CinKaren GordonFeb 13, 2019
Alita: Battle Angel is about a sweet but lethally trained hybrid girl. Fittingly, it feels like a hybrid story, pulled together from bits and pieces of Young Adult and genre action films, and is less than the sum of its parts. Read full review
58
The Film StageVikram MurthiFeb 12, 2019
Alita works as spectacle, but there’s so much conspiring against that endgame that its best moments hardly feel worth it. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 15, 2019
I loved watching this sci-fi spectacle’s moving parts. I just couldn’t get past its brain. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleFeb 13, 2019
We never see Salazar’s performance, only the SFX team’s re-creation of her performance, and that generates a disconnect between the audience and the lead character that the film can never overcome. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshFeb 13, 2019
With tonal inconsistencies and poorly written characters, any awe inspired by Alita: Battle Angel is replaced with a profound sense of confusion. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghFeb 13, 2019
Even if your veins pump with more popcorn butter than blood, Alita: Battle Angel can get a bit too stupid to bear, like watching a pair of 13-year-old boys play a very expensive video game they designed themselves. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversFeb 12, 2019
Now, after a deluge of comic book epics and other CGI-filled sci-fi fantasies, the movie feels like it’s way past its sell-by date. Alita: Battle Angel looks ready to rock, but time has sucked the life out of the party. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesKatie WalshFeb 12, 2019
With tonal inconsistencies and poorly written characters, any awe inspired by Alita: Battle Angel is replaced with a profound sense of confusion. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonFeb 1, 2019
Cutting-edge performance-capture technology gives us a remarkably lifelike Alita, but although Robert Rodriguez clearly loves this pulpy genre material, that affection rarely translates into anything more than an impressive display of technical might. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 1, 2019
I can’t speak to the manga that inspired it, but Cameron, Rodriguez and third screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis give us settings, characters and story elements from “Blade Runner,” “Robocop” and “Rollerball,” all hanging from the framework of Cameron’s TV series, “Dark Angel.” Whatever comfort these over-familiar tropes deliver, “surprise” and “invention” don’t figure here. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyDarren FranichJan 31, 2019
This manga adaptation is a tired science-fiction odyssey, with bland digital effects piled onto a sappy non-story that feels like a two-hour elevator pitch for a 70-film franchise. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonJan 31, 2019
While not exactly a misfire, Rodriguez and Cameron's joint effort lacks the zing and originality of their best individual work. Read full review
50
VarietyGuy LodgeJan 31, 2019
This manga-based cyberpunk origin story is a pretty zappy effects showcase, weighed down by a protracted, soul-challenged Frankenstory that short-circuits every time it gets moving. Read full review
46
TheWrapNicholas BarberJan 31, 2019
The film is stuffed with so many plot strands and so many different genres (sports movie, YA rebellion movie, bounty-hunter movie) that it never gets moving. Read full review
40
CNNBrian LowryMay 21, 2019
There are no icebergs here, but that doesn't prevent the movie from sinking under its own weight. Read full review
40
The New YorkerRichard BrodyFeb 13, 2019
The character of Hugo is written and directed with an aw-shucksiness that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Mickey Rooney musical, and his romance with Alita has a simple and absolute purity that’s as sentimentally drubbing as it is devoid of substance. Read full review
40
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJan 31, 2019
This visually epic, but monotonous collaboration between James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez is less than the sum of its slick parts. Read full review
40
Total FilmMatt MaytumJan 31, 2019
Impressive VFX and bursts of action can’t mask the fact that this is a tonally confused start for a sci-fi franchise hopeful, made up of scrap parts you’ve seen put to better use elsewhere. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyJan 31, 2019
As you’d expect from Rodriguez, it has a decent number of pow-wow fight scenes, and sure loves to watch machinery being ripped to shreds. But it's all uncomfortably close to the gruesome Flesh Fair from Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, revamped as an ain’t-it-cool demolition derby with a charm-and-conscience bypass. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 14, 2019
All the cutting-edge pyrotechnics in the universe can’t overcome the uneven (and ultimately unsatisfying) screenplay. Read full review
37
Washington PostHau ChuFeb 12, 2019
It’s easy to see why Cameron and Rodriguez might have been drawn to the story. At its core, however muddled, there are classic sci-fi themes of class and what it means to be human. So it’s baffling that the film goes to such lengths to show Alita’s sheer brutality. Read full review
30
The New York TimesManohla DargisFeb 12, 2019
A pileup of clichés in service to technological whiz-bangery, “Alita” is one more story of the not quite human brought to life with hubris and bleeding-edge science. Read full review
25
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiFeb 13, 2019
By the end of this derivative, heartless mess, you’ll conclude that a garbage dump is exactly where writer-producer James Cameron’s new project belongs. Read full review
More From This Movie

53 Critic Reviews

8.5 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 77 Project Hail Mary
2 75 Send Help
3 73 Hoppers
4 72 The Sheep Detectives
5 68 Crime 101
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL