Synopsis: Battle: Los Angeles revolves around a Marine staff sergeant and his new platoon's battle against an alien invasion on the streets of Los Angeles. The movie is presented as an intense real-time war movie from the perspective of the Marines. It has been described by some as "Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day". It will be a live-action drama, showcasing the United States Marines attempting to defeat an alien invasion of planet Earth.
Despite the numerous trailers, clips, photos and interviews that have made their way online in recent weeks during Sony's heavy marketing campaign, I had seen none of them before heading off to my local cinema to watch
Battle: Los Angeles. Why? Well, the dreadful
Skyline was more than enough to put me off these alien invasion type films for a lifetime. Still, I couldn't help but notice just how impressive it did look in the few things I had seen, so decided to check it out. Whether it lives up to all that hype is questionable.
Battle: Los Angeles certainly delivers the epic actions sequences you might expect. In fact, it's pretty much just one CGI heavy long gunfight. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and there's no doubting that the movie is damned exciting, it's simply the fact that the characters suffer because of this. Apart from Aaron Eckhart's Marine Staff Sergeant, the characters are a rag tag bunch of cliched Marines, none of who are fleshed out or particularly interesting. It's hardly a spoiler to say that some of them die, but you'll find it a challenge to either care or remember who they were!
Going back to Aaron Eckhart's role though, I think it's only fair to say that it's him who carries the movie. Managing to add some depth to a character who has pretty much none, is no easy feat, but he pulls it off and makes a character that it's easy to both feel and root for. Michelle Rodriguez and he fellow supporting cast members are all rather unimpressive and not in the least bit memorable. The story is fairly standard. There is little in the way of twists and turns, although as I've said above about the characters, that's not really the priority here. The action IS. It's clear that plenty of money has been spent on those scenes, and the mixture of CGI and live action is blended very well. In fact, I can't recall a single instance where any sort of dodgy or unconvincing special effects took me out of the moment for a second. The aliens are well animated (if a little vague and generic) as are their ships. The final sequence of the movie is particularly impressive. The gunfights are well choreographed and director handles these scenes well, never letting things get too frantic or hard to follow. Jonathan Liebesmahandles the whole movie well, and succeeds in giving it a gritty and realistic battlefield feel.
I many ways,
Battle: Los Angeles is the hardest to review movie I've ever seen. As a film, the above flaws really do make me think it deserves the numerous poor reviews I've seen for it. However, there's no denying that it's damned good fun and a visually exciting, action packed, kick ass movie. I suppose it's what you might call a popcorn flick. Whether you enjoy it or not will come down to what kind of moviegoer you are. If you're happy to switch your brain off and enjoy it for what it is, then you should have a great time. If not, you'll spend plenty of time picking apart the numerous flaws and ludicrous moments in what occasionally feels more like a piece of propaganda for the US Marines, than it does a movie. A fun, action packed flick that's short on brains, but big on action and excitement. Worth watching.