Battle: Los Angeles - A Review (with spoilers)

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Dave

Dave

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First, I just got back from this movie so I'm doing this while it's fresh in my mind. I was a little wary since Roger Ebert gave this movie 1/2 a star in a truly scathing review. I think he's wrong.

Do I think the movie is a masterpiece? No. Do I think anyone will win any awards from it? Hell no. But it did exactly what it was trying to do and was exactly as billed. It was a loud war movie with Humans vs Aliens.

Here's what I found WRONG with the movie. It sounds like a lot but it's really not.

  1. The characters were textbook. The plucky Hispanic, the brooding black guy whose brother was killed, the "aw shucks" farm boy from the sticks. There was a token chick as well but she came across as stronger and more capable than most token chicks. She had a legitimate role and did it very well, so she rose way, WAY above the cookie-cutter characters. In fact, MOST of the characters were well acted, even though we'd seen them before.
  2. There was one really bad editing part where they entered an underground place in the dark of night (which it had to be for the plot) and emerged in broad daylight (which it did NOT have to be for the plot other than to show the cool special effects).
  3. If aliens came to Earth all ready to bust the joint up and relied heavily on "unmanned" (unaliened?) drones, why would they not leave the command center in space to control everything? Nope, they brought it down to Earth and hid underground. So while the winning wasn't exactly Deus ex Machina, it was certainly not plausible.
  4. The Staff Sergeant (played very well by Aaron Eckhart) was a hard bitten old timer who was just getting out when the shit hit the fan (cliche, anyone?) and he got pulled back in. Wonder of wonders, the squad he gets assigned to has a brother of a guy who died under his command. Yeah, improbable but still possible. But they had to stop at one point and hash out their differences while...
  5. The aliens wait politely for the Humans to talk or dialogue. Then when it's convenient or the plot needs to move, they start attacking again. It wouldn't have been annoying had they not done it several times.
  6. The movie was very OOH RAH MARIIIIIIIINES! And so jingoistic I think the director must shit red, white and blue. Which would be cool to see but it was at times a little cheesy.

Sounds like a lot wrong, huh? Let's see what they did right.

  1. They focused on the Humans and the interactions between them. This was as much a character movie as an alien invasion movie.
  2. The aliens did not have their motives explained a la Independence Day. They came, we said "Oh shit!" and it was on. No quarter given, none asked for.
  3. The military tactics were pretty sound. Ammo ran out, people got dinged, the grenades weren't GRENADES-KABOOOOOM like most movies and they acted & talked like real people. Which brings me to -
  4. I said this in #1 (WRONG) above, but even though these characters weren't new or original, the actors and actresses brought them to life. They felt like real people with real backgrounds and you could give a shit about them. This could easily have been a terrible joke of a cast but they did a wonderful job with the material given and turned what could have been a flop into a very enjoyable movie.
  5. This was a movie about aliens coming to Earth. We didn't know their capabilities, science, anything. It was loud, confusing at times but damn it, that's what war IS!
In the end, this movie was exactly as it was billed. The aliens came, we fought and by GOD the Americans won (and told the world how to take them bastards down!). It doesn't deserve 4 stars but it shouldn't have gotten only 1/2 a star, either. This sits firmly in the 2.5-3 star range and is worth seeing on the big screen.

I'm sorry, Mr. Ebert. I think you are wrong on this one.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

I won't be seeing this in theaters, but at least it sounds like the film was about a war, rather than an extermination. I'm really bored with alien invasion movies where Earth is completely kicked in the groin, on the very edge of death, and then humanity bounces back by luck, fate, whatever. It's more interesting if there's an actual question as to who's winning in any given scene, rather than to just assume humans are going to get their asses kicked until the end of the movie.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
The aliens are pushing out from the oceans because they use liquid water as fuel. So they are establishing beachheads all along the coasts of every major continent and city by the sea. Inlands are still held by the Humans but places like LA, New York, London, etc? Fucked.
 
strawman

strawman

Dave said:
The aliens are pushing out from the oceans because they use liquid water as fuel. So they are establishing beachheads all along the coasts of every major continent and city by the sea. Inlands are still held by the Humans but places like LA, New York, London, etc? Fucked.
Click to expand...
Interesting. So did they push the comparison of the US going to war for oil onto the aliens, going to war for water?
 
IronBrig4

IronBrig4

I saw it today and thought it was rather good. But I really, really, REALLY wish the shaky cam would go away.

As an aside, aliens should learn that attacking California is the most terrible idea in the history of terrible ideas. They're either greeted by a hand-delivered knockout punch from Will Smith ("Welcome to EARF") or by a motley crew of Marines, soldiers, airmen, and civilians who keep popping back up like cockroaches.
 
strawman

strawman

I really enjoyed it, though like everyone else wish they would cut it out with the shakeycam. I can understand filming a few select scenes with it, similar to the way they might completely cut out sound for a few seconds but only a couple of times during the movie for dramatic effect.

But this was shakey cam city.

Either I got used to it about 2/3 of the way through, or they stopped using it as much, because it finally stopped bothering me about that point, but prior to that the shakeycam actively got in the way of enjoying the film.

As others have said it was cardboard cutout characters placed in a bad situation, and they parts were written and acted well enough that you couldn't help but get pulled into the movie.

The only problem I had with the story itself is that a race that can move such a large force across the galaxy who has no need for humans should have no problem obliterating cities from space. You can't tell me they don't have weapons equivalent to nukes. Of course, the humans would have no fighting chance, and thus the movie would never be made, but what I'm saying is that the movie is very well thought out and put together - that's the only real deal breaker for me, everything else was reasonable.

It was plausible both that the situation could happen in this way, and also that a good group of regular marines with brains in their headpan and a never say die attitude could actually pull off what they did. Further, that they didn't do it entirely alone - they used the appropriate air support, they depended on others, etc.

It wasn't some super special force with a leader that's been through everything and always won. They didn't have the special hacker that can break into everything. They didn't have the super detective that can put 1 and 2 together to get 4 just in the nick of time.

It was a group of people, just trying to survive, and when they saw a chance to do significant damage to the enemy, they didn't hesitate to try.

So, yeah, a big old "humans are the cockroaches of the universe, and always will survive" movie, and quite enjoyable at that.
 
Azurephoenix

Azurephoenix

I enjoyed the hell out of this movie and I totally agree with Dave's assessment of it. Most assuredly not a 4 star movie... but the bullshit numbers that critics have been handing out are totally undeserved.

I also wanted to mention that the characters seemed to push well past their generic sterotypes, especially the staff sergeant who I thought was particularly good.

It's also a nice change of pace to see characters get injured and die. This wasn't a group of 5 invincible dudes blowing away everything that came near them. They paid for a lot of their victories in blood.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
So *I* give a review and nothing. Azure gives a review and suddenly you're all like, "I guess it ain't that bad! Thanks, Azurephoenix!!"

:(
 
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