Looks that kill

‘Alita: Battle Angel’ fills the screen with eye-popping, 3D-enhanced visuals while telling passable story

It isn’t exactly that the visually spectacular “Alita: Battle Angel” shows you anything you haven’t seen before. ¶ Highly effective performance-capture technology. ¶ Richly detailed post-apocalyptic settings. ¶ Use of 3D that wows not through gimmicks but by adding rich depth to the film’s world. ¶ Computer-aided action sequences that at times thrill with speed and at others use slow-motion to deliver highly stylized moments of intense violence. ¶ Oh, and a more-thancapable heroine who looks cool kicking butt. ¶ None of this is new. ¶ However, it all comes together so well in “Alita” that you can’t help but be impressed in the overall look of the film.

That “Alita” looks so spectacular probably shouldn’t be a surprise given the two high-profile names largely responsible for bringing it to bigscreen life: director Robert Rodriguez and writerproducer James Cameron. The film plays somewhat like the scifi cousin of Rodriguez’s violent “Sin City” films, while its 3D aspect feels like the evolution of what Cameron delivered in 2009 with “Avatar.” Also not surprising is that “Alita” — based on a manga graphic novel series by Yukito Kishiro and populated largely by odd-looking, partially robotic characters — is better at world-building than it is at storytelling. Still, the tale presented by Rodriguez and Cameron is coherent enough to earn the film at least a tepid recommendation.

That story is set in 26thcentury earth, 300 years after “The Fall,” a catastrophic war that halted technological process and left a society where every last bit of old tech that can be found is repurposed and where the strong prey on the weak. More specifically, “Alita” takes place in Iron City, a melting-pot factory town that cranks out goods for the mysterious elites who live above them in the floating Zalem, “last of the great Sky cities.”

In the opening moments of “Alita,” we meet cyberphysician Dr. Dyson (Christoph Waltz), aka “Ido,” scavenging for tech in a giant scrapyard. He makes what, to him at least clearly is a momentous find: a human-like robotic head.

On a subsequent morning, young cybernetic female Alita (Rosa Salazar) awakens in a bedroom in Ido’s home, unaware not only of how she got there but also of anything about her past. Ido, who is delighted to see she appears to be functioning properly, has ideas about what a past for the girl may have looked like and wants to shield her from those potential realities.

However, she soon makes a friend in a young, streetsmart man, Hugo (Keean Johnson), who rides a nifty one-wheel motorcycle and is all too happy to indulge her curiosities about where she came from. Among other things, Hugo introduces her to chocolate — she loves it — and motorball, a popular sport played both in the streets and in packed arenas. (Picture a high-tech, insanely violent cross between racing and rugby and you start to get the idea.)

With her quick reflexes and general athletic gifts, Alita quickly is able to compete at a high level in motorball. That, along with a confrontation with a cybernetic criminal late at night, suggests she may have a warrior’s past.

As she works to piece it all together, she becomes of interest to Vector (Mahershala Ali), a corrupt power player in Iron City who has his hands in bigtime motorball.

Also key to the mix is Ido’s ex-wife, Chiren (Jennifer Connelly), who has thrown in with Vector as a means to an end.

Co-written by Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis (“Shutter Island”), the script for “Alita” doesn’t exactly dazzle in the dialogue department.

“Does it bother you that I’m not completely human?” asks Alita — who by this point in the film is almost completely unhuman physically — as the inevitable love story between Hugo and her deepens.

“You are the most human person I’ve ever met,” he tells her.

Um, really? (OK, we get the spirit of his response, but come on.)

Likely in part because the dialogue is constraining, the acting seldom impresses. It helps to have quality performers in Waltz (“Inglourious Basterds,” “Django Unchained”), Ali (“Green Book,” “True Detective”) and Connelly (“Only the Brave,” “Noah”), but none is able to do great work here.

The best character moments come, despite the aforementioned exchange and even though motion capture was involved, when Salazar (“Bird Box,” “Maze Runner: The Death Cure”) and Johnson (“Nashville,” “Billy Elliot” on Broadway) share the screen. The two actors display an appealing chemistry.

Most of the appeal of “Alita: Battle Angel” is, again, in its impressive visuals. Even when the action is fast and furious, you notice the rich detail filling the frame thanks to Rodriguez (“From Dusk to Dawn,” “Spy Kids”), Cameron (“The Terminator,” “The Abyss”) and what no doubt was a huge number of effects folks.

This movie simply looks slaved-over.

Only time will tell if movie audiences will be hungry for the sequel “Alita” tries to set up in its final moments.

In the meantime, their eyes will have been given a feast.

TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX The namesake of “Alita: Battle Angel,” portrayed by Rosa Salazar via performance-capture technology, may be small, but she packs a serious punch.

TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX The newly awakened Alita (Rosa Salazar) instinctually takes a fighting stance when threatened as Hugo (Keean Johnson) runs to her aid in a scene from “Alita: Battle Angel.”