ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (12A)
HHH HH ADAPTED from Yukito Kishiro’s acclaimed manga series, Alita: Battle Angel is a futuristic action adventure directed by Robert Rodriguez.
The tug of war between spectacle and substance threatens to tear apart Rodriguez’s uneven picture, which punctuates Alita’s personal odyssey with turbo-charged sequences of a futuristic contact sport called Motorball, which combines a roller derby with the slam bang destruction of Robot Wars.
It’s set in the mid-26th century, 300 years after a cataclysmic event has rendered the surface of the Earth largely uninhabitable.
Zalem is the sole human stronghold to survive the devastation. Engineered by an omnipresent despot named Nova (Ed Norton), Zalem hovers menacingly over the scrapheap of Iron City. Cybersurgeon Dr Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) discovers a cyborg torso and reanimates his find. With guidance from her protector, Alita (Rose Salazar) masters control of her skeleton and falls in love with Hugo (Keean Johnson) who teaches her to play Motorball, which is controlled by Nova’s slippery henchman, Vector (Mahershala Ali). Alita’s formidable strength and speed threaten Vector’s grip on Motorball and he enlists cyborg bounty hunter Zapan (Ed Skrein) to kill the girl so her parts can be harvested by Dyson’s duplicitous ex-wife, Chiren (Jennifer Connelly).
Alita: Battle Angel is a feast for easily pleased senses, but with its clunky exposition and clearly signposted deaths, it seldom encourages us to engage our brains.