From James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez, Alita: Battle Angel takes too long to fully come into its own, and then it’s too late.

Studios love to try and find the next big tentpole franchise, and if the insane cliffhanger ending to this movie is any indication, James Cameron (co-writer and producer) and Robert Rodriguez (director) clearly thought they had something on their hands that would have audiences clamoring for more.

Although early international box office suggests they might be right, it is still such thinking that acts as a detriment to the actual movie you’re watching because audiences aren’t given a satisfying, self-contained story with a beginning, middle and end.

The year is 2563, some 300 years after a great world-ending battle called The Fall. Civilization is now divided by class, with the Earth-bound proletariats living in Iron City with the upper crest society living in a literal city in the sky called Zalem. Alita (Rosa Salazar), head and torso only, gets picked up in a scrap yard by Doctor Ido (Christopher Waltz) who then assembles her back together onto a full cyborg body.

She awakens, not remembering anything from her past, except for occasional flashes during violent encounters. These flashes inform who she might be, who she once was, where she came from, helping her answer the large, existential question “who am I?”

Turns out these brief glimpses into her past reveal, before the war, she was the most powerful weapon ever known and has the untapped potential to still be that. And with this knowledge, there’s the ever-present looming dread of a silhouetted mysterious figure, the big villain of the movie…who we never meet until the film’s final seconds, and then it ends.

This huge build-up never fully engages in a cathartic release and instead, it ends in a screenplay that’s ultimately unsatisfying. Rodriguez and Cameron must believe there’s a lot to mine in this world, with the question of artificial intelligence, robots vs. humanity, and they’re not wrong. There’s a lot to chew on. A good first half of the movie is entirely exposition, such as learning who the “hunter killers” are, what Motorball is and why Iron City has outlawed guns.

The movie is based on Yukito Kishiro’s multi-volume Japanese manga of the same name, so it makes sense for there to be a lot of exposition packed in. But the sometimes clunky screenplay from Cameron and co-writer Laeta Kalogridis could’ve been a lot more clever in how it presents information to the audience. There are more organic approaches as an alternative to the cheap mechanism of Alita walking around asking characters “what’s this?” and “who’s that?”

The movie really fires on all cylinders once Alita enters the thrilling and brutal Motorball ring against fellow cyborgs, and she begins realizing her full potential as a warrior. Those sequences are energetic, alive and beautifully choreographed. When she takes down baddies triple her size, it’s a rush of feminist fuck yeah, which really is what ninety percent of this movie should be. It is called Alita Battle Angel, after all.

And therein lies the biggest drawback of Alita. Quickly after regaining consciousness and exploring her new world, one of the first people she, and we, meet is a strapping young lad named Hugo (Keean Johnson). He shows her the ropes, and she is quite quickly smitten.

Maybe it’s staying true to the source material, but dedicating so much of Alita’s energy and the movie’s runtime toward a rather disposable love interest who waxes about his hopes and dreams of getting into the upper tier of high society, it’s just such a bummer. I want to see Alita beat shit up and realize who she is as a badass warrior, not awkwardly offer her literal heart to some guy and then chuckle and say, “how embarrassing was that!”

Getting Hugo out of the picture, or at least diminishing his importance a bit, would’ve also allowed more fleshing out of the villains we do meet, since the actor-cameo of the big villain is saved for the last 30 seconds. Mahershala Ali plays the villainous Vector while Jennifer Connelly is Chiren, whose motives are shrouded in mystery.

Both of them deliver cartoonish seriousness, talking about their big plans for the girl called Alita. And of course Rosa Salazar in a full motion-capture performance provides plenty of wide-eyed wonder in the role, oozing charm and empathy when she’s not in thrilling acrobatic combat.

If there really is the follow-through of a sequel to Alita: Battle Angel, I will be waiting for it. My doubts, however, are high with Cameron occupied with his numerous Avatar sequels. And so here we are left with a setup of a movie and no payoff. In my opinion, the girl called Alita deserves better than that.