Alita’s blind devotion to this narcissistic idiot is one of the many inconsistencies in the screenplay. OK then.Įven before Alita regains her memories, she’s whip-smart and savvy - and yet she’s as naïve and lovestruck as Sandy in “Grease” when she’s around the boy-band cute but bland and transparent Hugo (Keean Johnson).

So our freshly rebuilt heroine Alita (Rosa Salazar) is a young, free-spirited teenage girl with oversized eyes who can’t remember her past but seems to have next-level fighting skills. Ido attaches the new girl’s head to his daughter’s body, he names the girl “Alita” - after his daughter. Dyson Ido (Waltz) comes across the head and upper torso of an advanced cyborg, and he brings that being back to life by attaching her to a cyborg body he’s kept stashed in his lab. Rooting around in the junk pile of Iron City, the cyber-physician Dr. “Alita: Battle Angel” takes place in the obligatory dystopian future, in this case the 26th century, long after a cataclysmic world war.

Artificial Intelligence,” a dash of “Rollerball,” topped off with some “Ghost in the Shell” and “Robocop” and “Frankenstein” and even a bit of “The Truman Show” to complete the recipe. It’s as if we’re watching a mashup of the “Terminator” movies, with a sprinkling of “Blade Runner” and “Total Recall,” a little bit of “A.I. Granted, we get some eye-popping 3-D visuals and a number of ultra-cool, video-game-type action sequences, but like the title character, “Alita: Battle Angel” is an amalgam without a unique identity of its own. Including the white-washing of certain key characters. Produced by James Cameron, directed by Robert Rodriguez and co-starring Academy Award winners Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali. This is the long-awaited, oft-delayed, big-budget adaptation of the 1990s Japanese manga graphic novel series “Gunnm,” by Yukito Kishiro. Despite the promising source material and the impressive resumes of the principals involved, “Alita: Battle Angel” feels like it could be the first giganto-flop of 2019, from the sometimes creepy imagery to the convoluted mess of a plot to the waste of an A-list cast.

Alicia battle angel