“Alita!”

From Alita: Battle Angel.

500 years in the future, society has been left in ruins where the elite live in the last remaining floating city while everyone else lives far below in Iron City.  When Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz) finds the core processor of a robot in the scrap yard from above, he decides to take it, repair it, and attach a robotic body to the head/heart/spine unit that he found… just like he’s done with hundreds of robotic devices and cyborgs before, but once he fits her with the body, Ido discovers that she is an amazing robot with long-lost technology and training.  When she wakes up, Alita (Rosa Salazar) is left with no memory of her life before, so Ido helps her find her way in this world filled with vicious bounty hunters (including Ed Skrein and Jeff Fahey) and loads of crime and violence.  One bright, kind person that Alita meets is the young Hugo (Keean Johnson) who introduces her to the high-stakes sport of Motor Ball where cyborg competitors often fight to the death in the hopes of one day becoming champion and earning a life in the city above.  Vector (Mahershala Ali) master of the Motor Ball games works along with Ido’s ex-wife, Chiren (Jennifer Connelly) to create parts and players for a more intense and profitable sport; they see Alita’s technology as a major threat, so they task a killer cyborg, Amok (Casper Van Dien) to eliminate her.  Every step Alita takes toward finding out who she was before seems to place her and the ones she loves in more danger; she’ll have to choose if she wants to be the innocent girl she has the chance to become or the warrior she feels she was originally created to be.

An action-packed sci-fi adventure, this movie features a sometimes difficult story to follow, but the fight scenes and animation is unbelievable.  The dystopian world that originated in a series of comic books is interesting to watch and Salazar and the cast is impressive (including several sequel-hopeful cameos).  Viewers wanting an easy action-fest need look no further than Alita: Battle Angel.

| Rated: PG-13 | Running Time: 142 minutes |Genre: action/sci-fi/thriller |

||Family Viewing||Cursing: 2* of 10|Nudity: 0 of 10|Sexuality: 0 of 10|Gore: 4 of 10

|AVAILABLE FOR HOME VIEWING|