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ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (12A)

WHAT do you want from a scifi movie – great visuals or a clever story?

If it’s the former, you should be blown away by this James Cameron-produced manga adaptation where cuttingedge special effects come up against a very rusty plot.

It’s the year 2563 in Iron City, a sprawling metropolis that’s overflowing with rubbish and packed with robotically enhanced citizens.

We are introduced to this world through the giant eyes of Alita (played by a motioncaptured Rosa Salazar), an amnesiac, teenage cyborg who is discovered on a scrap heap by Christoph Waltz’s Geppetto-like cyber-doctor.

Like Cameron’s Avatar, this represents a huge leap forward in movie effects.

Now it’s impossible to see where the pixels start and the actors end. Sadly, director Robert Rodriguez’s storytelling is not quite so convincing.

Alita, we learn, is one of a kind. Apparently, the big-eyed range of cyborgs were supposed to have been killed off three centuries earlier in an apocalyptic event called The Fall.

But nobody seems to bat a regular-sized eyelid at her as she wanders around the streets in broad daylight.

When she does get noticed, it’s for the killer karate moves she displays in a spectacular early action scene.

We root for the child-like Alita, but her love affair with hunky human Hugo (Keean Johnson) and her relationship with her adoptive father feel rushed and unconvincing.

Cyborgs have never looked more lifelike, but the sequelbaiting ending may leave you rather cold.