Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Genre: Action
Format: Theatrical Release
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Haven't I seen this before and wasn't the film pretty darn horrible too? Oh, I have mistaken this movie for the rotten Skyline, which has absolutely no redeeming value. Apparently, Los Angeles is the new "it" location for alien invasion movies. And I always thought that aliens would always try to attack Washington first...
Battle: LA is thankfully a lot more entertaining than that awful movie I mentioned previously whose title should never be referenced ever again in the rest of human history. Suspicious meteor showers are hitting the coastal cities of the world and it wasn't long before alien creatures start to emerge from the ocean to wreak havoc to the surrounding areas. Of course, as the movie title proudly claims, we the viewers only get to the see the bulk of the action with what is happening in good old LA. Instead of focusing on the spoiled and the rich who littered the LA streets, the movie follows a group of marines who are tasked to secure a location and save the civilians along the way. This movie is actually less a sci-fi extravaganza than it is your standard war movie in a wonky setting.
Battle: LA goes for that gritty, realistic feel with its amateurish shaky camera and muted color scheme. Even the action doesn't ramp up until about halfway through and for the most part, you just get to see the marines shouting at each other and shooting randomly at the enemies in low visibility areas. I thought that the first half of the movie was not very interesting and that whole "sergeant who feels like he has to quit from serving because he lost his men in a previous deployment" was just too forced and you can see where the narrative is going when you are first smacked right in the face by that little detail. There is one genuinely emotional moment involving a death however but even that was quickly turned into what seemed to be a five minute long cheesy speech. It's like the movie tried so hard to build up to that one moment and then it quickly changed its mind because perhaps things got a little too serious. One should not expect to find an engrossing storyline when watching this kind of movie but since Battle: LA is not all about the action, the flaw in the writing is ever more present. The special effects in the movie range from "Sci-Fi Channel Special" bad to really good so maybe there was a problem with the budget. The aliens are neither menacing nor original and you never feel like their presence are all that threatening, which is of course a little disappointing.
This movie is mediocre at its best and it is seriously misleading. For a worldwide conflict that it suggested, the movie felt a bit too confined and the moments leading up to the end were a little too clean. It is half military drama, half science fiction, and one great fight sequence that wasn't even the climax. It could have been better with more spectacles involving the death and destruction caused by the invaders but I understand that they wanted to accomplish something a little different here and all I can say is that at least they tried.
RATING: 3 out of 5
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