There are some cool robot dogs in this live-action anime film… and one very unlucky real dog.

Jackie Earle Haley as villain Grewishka

SPOILERS

Alita (Rosa Salazar) has just befriended a little dog when the villainous cyborg Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley) hunting her appears. The dog barks at him and he kills it, mercifully offscreen.

But then an enraged Alita dips her fingers in the dead dog’s blood and smears it under her eyes like war paint before she turns to fight Grewishka.

Look, not even John Wick did that. He respectfully buried Daisy the puppy, then got his bloody revenge.

The Ringer calls this death “unnecessarily gruesome”  and adds,  “I didn’t need her to rummage around the lifeless corpse of an innocent animal in order to get some cool face paint.” Agreed.