
I wish blue-chip directors wouldn’t try so hard to create characters who could replace actors.
The so-so animated version of “Polar Express” suggested it was possible. Now, technology is so advanced it looks like it’s coming sooner than we think.
With “Alita: Battle Angel,” the title character looks believable enough, but there’s still that creepy disconnect that comes with trying to mix forms.
In this case, Rosa Salazar has been turned into a cyborg who has lightning speed and a killer instinct.
She’s the pet project of a doctor who likes crafting new borgs out of leftover parts. Alita was once a superweapon but Dyson Ido (Cristoph Waltz) doesn’t want her to learn too much too soon. He considers her the daughter he always wanted and, sure enough, she begins to feel the pangs of her past. While hanging with a robo-junk dealer named Hugo (Keean Johnson), she begins to feel emotions – not all of them positive.
Once she realizes what’s what (through a lot of exposition provided by a number of folks), she decides to become a bounty hunter and figure out what’s actually going on in the world hovering over Iron City, circa 2563.

Keean Johnson, left, and Rosa Salazar star in “Alita: Battle Angel.”
Ido’s ex-wife (Jennifer Connelly) and her beau (Mahershala Ali) have some connection to Zalem, that looming world, that could be key, but they’re keen on using their Motorball tournament to lure Alita in.
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