Alita: Battle Angel (2019) * 1/2

Directed by: Robert Rodriguez

Starring:  Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Mahershala Ali, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Skrein, Keean Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jackie Earle Haley

It didn't bode well for Alita: Battle Angel when I began comparing it to Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.    The world of Alita is Valerian meets Fred Sanford's junk-laden backyard meets the Columbus, Ohio of Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One.    The incoherent plot and dialogue throws names and places around which would register if we cared in the first place.    The action centers around the popular sport of Motorball, which rips off Rollerball (you pick which version), and everyone's desire to ascend from Earth to Zalem, which is supposedly a more desirable world located in a gigantic spaceship which hovers over the planet.    What isn't a more desirable world than the mess in which Alita takes place?

The Alita (Salazar) is a cyborg manufactured by "cybersurgeon" Dr. Ido (Waltz), who attaches a head he finds in a massive junkyard to the body of his deceased daughter.    Alita comes to life in Pinocchio-like fashion, and can't remember anything of her past.   It turns out she was a superior cyborg warrior unlike any other, and has powers and athleticism far beyond any cyborgs which came before her.    Soon, thanks to reasons much too laborious to recap, her body is sliced into a dozen pieces and Dr. Ido reattaches Alita to her old cyborg body which she found at a battle site.   Now she is a complete cyborg with big doe eyes, an expressive human-like face, and an impressive figure for a cyborg.  

The villains are Chiren (Connelly), Dr. Ido's ex-wife who may as well be wearing a "will have a change of heart" t-shirt and Vector (Ali), a slickster who makes promises of one-way tickets to Zalem in exchange for robot parts which will help his Motorball team win.   Vector is also a human portal for the grand poobah who rules Zalem and by extension, the planet.    Vector's eyes change colors when he is possessed by the grand poobah, whose name escapes me. 

Alita costs nearly $200 million to make, but still looks cheaply made.   The action scenes are nonsensical, as is the plot.    The city itself looks like a farmer's bazaar gone haywire.   The actors attempt their mightiest to pull off their roles with aplomb, and there are three previous Oscar winners in the cast in Waltz, Ali, Connelly.   Each has been in big bombs before and have shaken them off to produce more quality work.    It may take a little more effort to shake this one off.