‘Alita’ is a cy-bore

The James Cameron-produced “Alita,” based on a 1990 Japanese manga created by Yukito Kishiro titled “Gunnm,” is described as a “cyberpunk action movie” with a female warrior cyborg as its heroine (Rosa Salazar plays the role through motion-capture).

But the film, directed by B-movie maker Robert Rodriguez, is more like a two-hour-plus exercise in the constant repetition of ultraviolent CG battle scenes that secured a PG-13 rating because the film’s gladiators are not human. So, off with their heads.

In the opening, we are on a post-apocalyptic future Earth (apparently, we lost a 300-year war with Martians). The elite live in Sky Cities, while the beatendown live down on the planet, where cyborg surgeon Dr. Dyson Ido (Viennese Christoph Waltz in a role apparently intended for someone Japanese), sifts through the Sky City trash for used parts.

One day, the doctor discovers the head and “core” of a cyborg, taking the appearance of a human adolescent girl. Ido then attaches this trashed part to a cybernetic body he had created for his late daughter. He also gives the cyborg his daughter’s name: Alita.

Creepy?

Alita finds herself attracted to a human teen named Hugo (Keean Johnson). Together, they skate the mean streets of Iron City, where Alita finds herself stalked by a “hunter-warrior” named Zapan (Ed Skrein) and others.

Hugo and Alita also fall under the spell of a violent game named Motorball that attracts millions of fans. Meanwhile, up on Sky City, the evil Vector (Mahershala Ali, posing) plots to rig Motorball games, along with his lover, a cyber-surgeon named Chiren (Jennifer Connelly), who was once the lover of Dr. Ido. “Bring me her heart,” someone shouts about Alita.

The film overflows with undeveloped characters and plot lines, and pushes the CG action, which I found numbing in its monotony and brutality, to the front.

(“Alita: Battle Angel” contains extremely violent action and gruesome images.)