Why I enjoyed "Battle: Los Angeles"

Now we all know the general setup for an "Invasion" Movie: Aliens invade. Almost always either New York or Los Angeles. Humans get rooked about %50 of the time. And we all know how overplayed that Scenario is.

There are the better Films, such as Independence Day and War of the Worlds (2005). Then there are the atrocities that should never have been thought of, let alone made into a feature length Film. Such as Battlefield Earth and Skyline.

Battle: Los Angeles was done measurably well. By no means was it outstanding. I mean, it could've been worse. It could've been Skyline 2. There was room for it to have been improved. Despite it being panned by Critics, which I have come to completely disregard for my own reasons, I enjoyed Battle: LA.

I won't go into the Writing because, let's face it, I pretty much outlined it in the first paragraph.

The Characters were good but could have been better. Aaron Eckhart's performance was an enjoyable one, as was Michelle Rodriguez's. Much to my surprise, Ramon Rodriguez, who played Leo Spitz in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, wasn't nearly as annoying. And at no point did I wish him to be "accidentally" killed.

Aaron Eckhart plays Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz. A Marine who has already seen action, and has the resulting scars. Only a few days from retirement, Nantz is weary about being called back to head a squad of Rookie Marines. At first, Nantz and his men are tasked with rescuing some civilians from a police station, but they soon encounter the invaders.

Let me say that the scene where the aliens first arrive was amazing. Seeing these comet-like objects land near the California beach, punching huge smokey black circles, almost mushroom clouds, in the air gave me chills. As that was happening, Los Angeles was already burning. Explosions popping up everywhere.

The aliens themselves were interesting. Not your normal style aliens, they almost looked bio-mechanical. Also they were introduced in a different way. Opting for the "less is more" technique rather than plopping them right in your face. Which I was happy to see done.

In the end, after encountering an alien Command and Control area, Nantz and what was left of the squad headed to a Temp Op Base in the Mojave Desert, and then back out to try and re-take LA.

I'm 50/50 on actually going out to the Theaters and seeing it or just Renting. If you're looking for a good weekend popcorn flick, go see Battle: Los Angeles.

Sounds like 2012 O_O
A.K.A
I'd love to watch it just to bash it.

I went to see it to go bash it. Then I didn't bash it that much because it could have been much worse. The way I see it, its like they took almost every single alien related movie/game and combined them into one seemingly plot-less movie. The action sequences were nice though.

Haha, maybe I'm not critical enough, but I liked 2012, as soon as I accepted it wasn't going to be realistic. I'll have to check this out, it sounds pretty cool, despite your criticism.

OK, alien invasion movies offend me on an intellectual level. Just get that right out there. I dug the X-Files cuz it was the subversion of humanity (alien-human hybrids anyone?). I liked the War of the Worlds (1950s ver) when I saw it on TV as a kid. I liked that their Star Trek-esque tech made all human weps meaningless, even the big A, plus that surprise ending. H. G. Wells rules!! Ahem.

Then I saw the Star Trek Next Generation ep, the one where Data's tasked to get stubborn human colonists off a planet before advanced nonhumans arrive to claim what's theirs by treaty. Before that, I had been exposed to the ideas of Gerard K. O'Neill (he wrote a couple books about orbital macroengineering) and I heard about the Dyson Sphere for the first time. Then there's HK-47. Those ideas killed any logic behind alien invasions, killed all the fun of it.

First, to paraphrase Data: "It doesn't matter how brave you are or not. They'll bombard your cities from orbit."
Next, to paraphrase HK-47: "Stupid meat sacks, after they bombard your cities from space, they'll set up a factory on the moon, build ten thousand copies of me, send 'em down, and we'll smoke all your butts."
Beyond that: O'Neil showed how to build artificial worlds. Freeman Dyson pointed out that advanced civilizations could build a habitable sphere completely around their own sun.

So....wtf, if they're so smart, why'd they ever want to invade us? And if they did, we'd be boned. We wouldn't even get to see any of them, they do it by remote control. Where's the fun in all that? There isn't. It's a bankrupt idea, kaput, junked, in the garbage heap. HK-47's the cop, "Nothing to see here, meat sacks. Move along."

But wait, not to leave you guys in despair, here's an idea that would lead to the same cinematic mayhem and it'd be new and different. Aliens come to Earth, they tell us, "Serve in our army for 500 years. We'll give you star drives, cure cancer, and free candy to everyone. If you say no, we'll nuke your planet to dust." So we become janissaries in their mercenary army, fighting all over the universe. This idea ain't original to me, Jerry Pournelle wrote three science fiction novels using this very idea. Wouldn't you rather see something like that? Vote with your wallets for something new. Don't watch the same old thing. Revolt! I tells ya!! Revolt!!

Good review, btw. Good comments. I happen to disagree with all of you, but still, it's all good.

I think that's why District 9 worked so well Frang. The aliens weren't hostile "invaders". In fact the humans were more the enemy than the Prawns

District 9 was good, a great switch-up on the old story.

It was indeed good, there were very few moments (only one I think) where you thought "yeah right, no way would that happen" other than the whole alien invasion thing obviously, I'd recommend it. One thing I did notice is there was a lot of detail in the sound, maybe I just hadn't been listening so much in other films, but I really noticed small details had been put in during this film. If this is your kind of thing, I'd recommend it.