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
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
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
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