![“Battle: Los Angeles”Written by Christopher Bertolini; Directed by Jonathan Liebesman; Stars:Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez and Bridget Moynahan. Story: Aliens attack the Earth; story focuses on the attack of Los Angeles and a Marines Unit as it struggles through a part of the city struggling to stay alive and protect each other as well as a few civilians they discover.
Seen by Adam and Lars, March 20, 2011
LARS:
It is a tough time to be a science-fiction fan. While there seems to be more and more content created to satisfy the sci-fi community, the sad fact is that most of it is downright awful and an insult to our intelligence. And trust me when I say this: The sci-fi community may be geeky, but they are SMART. That’s why it remains so surprising to me that Hollywood seems to think sci-fi movies need to be dumb. Look at some of the last couple of year’s best sci-fi movies and TV shows: Was “Inception” dumb? Was “Battlestar Galactica” dumb? Granted, “Avatar” was pretty dumb, but that was mostly an exercise in world-creation, so it has to be judged slightly differently. For some reason that I don’t fully understand, Hollywood has decided that smart is downright anti-American. What they apparently don’t understand is that sci-fi geeks have money to spend. And not only will we go see the movie in theaters, we will also buy the DVD. Hell, we’ll even buy the box set of the whole season on Blu-Ray. There is money to be made catering to this community with good content. I can’t help blaming “Star Wars” a little bit, especially the last trilogy, which was so dumb and made so much money that it may have influenced filmmakers and studios a little too much. But look at “Alien(s)”, “Lost” (yes, “Lost” was sci-fi, kids), “Minority Report” and even “The Fifth Element”. You can make damn good sci-fi that’s also great entertainment. Instead we get shit like “The Event” and “Skyline”. And don’t even get me started on the superhero movie sub-genre of sci-fi… Does anyone think “Thor” will be any good? Meanwhile even David Fincher can’t get Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rendezvous with Rama” off the ground, and Universal recently chickened out of doing H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountain of Madness” even with Guillermo Del Toro as the director and James Cameron as the producer. Sigh. One of the biggest issues here is that it’s gotten a lot cheaper to do special effects. This has led to the misunderstanding that that’s the sole reason we go to sci-fi movies. And, sure, that’s part of it. There’s something satisfying about seeing other worlds and their inhabitants come to life. And about large-scale destruction that doesn’t really work well in movies like, say, “The King’s Speech”. Although I’d have paid good money to see Jar Jar Binks teach English to King George, and then blow up Buckingham Palace, when the King failed to pronounce a vowel correctly. But, honestly, it’s like eating McDonald’s food. It satisfies a craving for a minute, then shortly after, you’re disgusted with yourself and you wow never to go back. Until you do. Anyway, the reason for this rant is the affront to any creature of even a modicum of intelligence that is “Battle: LA”. First off, I would argue that it’s barely even a movie. It could probably have been shot inside the game engine of “Gears of War”. It’s basically a 3rd person shooter game. With dialogue worthy of a game. Although I’d argue that at this point that even games know that if you can get your players emotionally involved with a character’s plight, then you have a stronger story with more engagement. “Battle: LA” truly leaves no cliché unturned. Aaron Eckhart (who must REALLY have needed the money) is slumming as the sergeant with a history of bad judgment who must redeem himself. Michelle Rodriguez plays the usual hard-ass chick (she must be SO tired of playing the same character in every movie) who is mostly there to give women someone to identify with, as they’ve mostly been forced into the theater by their boyfriends. Everyone else is basically cannon fodder. The aliens? They are from generic alien shelf no 17. There’s nothing new or revolutionary about them. They are not even particularly interesting. They apparently want the Earth for our water. Ho-hum. At least make the invaders intimidating and scary as hell, if you want me to root for the humans. I frankly hoped they would get Eckhart, so he would stop spouting nonsense all the time. Finally, the ending is about as clever as a bag of hammers. It makes the gloriously stupid Macbook virus solution from “Independence Day” look like a fucking Einstein move. Let’s hope that “Battle: LA” and “Skyline” means that we’ve hit rock bottom. The only way is up: Head for the second star to the right, and straight on till morning.
ADAM:War is hell. With smog. ”Battle of Los Angeles” was a war movie I was looking forward to, but I had many reservations; far too often the promise of a great Sci-fi action movie is never delivered upon and what we’re left with is either hokey dialogue, an implausible and unsatisfying resolution, characters we don’t care about and more questions than answers — and not the good ones, like “what happens after Richard Dreyfuss takes off in the spaceship at the end of Close Encounters?” Nothing wrong with dangling that little carrot in front of the audience as the credits roll. But in Battle of Los Angeles, we have all three; hokey dialogue, an unsatisfying conclusion and characters we don’t care about. They combine to deliver a less than satisfying experience for the brain and heart; the visuals, which are a pretty decent feast for the eyes, can’t carry this movie and thus “Battle” becomes pretty forgettable by the time you get home.Now, I’m not saying it’s all bad; it’s not. The action and look are pretty damn nice, in fact I’d liken the visual experience to that of watching a pretty adept player working his or her way through a sortie battle of a very refined and realistic PS3 or XBOX 360 video game. And I actually enjoyed the fact that the “war” model was used, rather than the “disaster” model as far as story is concerned; this isn’t another introduction to a plethora of characters from all walks of life and subsequently an intercutting of how they all deal with the madness. This is about the members of one unit, and how they make their way through the battlefield during the invasion. I think this strategy in storytelling was a good choice. And probably where the good choices ended. Aaron Eckhart is saddled with some of the worst dialogue I’ve heard in a while, particularly when he’s forced to keep up morale of his subordinates, who challenge his caring about his men and ability to lead after a previous battle where he lost an entire platoon. Eckhart’s response to justify how much he cares and the guilt he carries with him: every lost soldier’s name and ID number from memory. Now, color me practical, but maybe if this guy spent more time on the firing range and less time memorizing inconsequential numbers from the past, this crew might find a way to turn the proverbial tide rather than finding several alien caps in their asses. And there’s yet another moment of dramatic mastery when Eckhart tries to raise the spirits of a ten year old boy who just watched his father die, by making him an honorary Marine and reminding him he must be tough and not give up now (presumedly like the kid’s decomposing dad in the next room did, giving up on life with his last breath.) How charming. And though some of the alien ships are cool, we never see them up close. The aliens are very reminiscent of the “Independence Day” variety, but again we only see so much — enough for the Marines to figure out where they must be shot in order to kill them. And then the movie really gets weak. It’s by the numbers, you know who will win, even if some lives are lost. My last random comment? The film features the ever gorgeous Bridget Moynahan, and ever annoying, but still fairly hot Michelle Rodriguez, and manages to make them both as dumpy looking as possible. I know there are casualties in war. But a sense of sexuality shouldn’t be a casualty of the war movie genre. All in all, Battle of Los Angeles lived up to my expectations by underwhelming me. I’m tempted to make a bad, pun-laden, Marine joke… We’ll let’s just sat I thought it was [Hoo - Ra] - ble.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lifecjqbv81qaw4plo1_250.jpg)
“Battle: Los Angeles”
Written by Christopher Bertolini; Directed by Jonathan Liebesman; Stars:Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez and Bridget Moynahan. Story: Aliens attack the Earth; story focuses on the attack of Los Angeles and a Marines Unit as it struggles through a part of the city struggling to stay alive and protect each other as well as a few civilians they discover.
Seen by Adam and Lars, March 20, 2011
LARS:
It is a tough time to be a science-fiction fan. While there seems to be more and more content created to satisfy the sci-fi community, the sad fact is that most of it is downright awful and an insult to our intelligence. And trust me when I say this: The sci-fi community may be geeky, but they are SMART. That’s why it remains so surprising to me that Hollywood seems to think sci-fi movies need to be dumb. Look at some of the last couple of year’s best sci-fi movies and TV shows: Was “Inception” dumb? Was “Battlestar Galactica” dumb? Granted, “Avatar” was pretty dumb, but that was mostly an exercise in world-creation, so it has to be judged slightly differently. For some reason that I don’t fully understand, Hollywood has decided that smart is downright anti-American. What they apparently don’t understand is that sci-fi geeks have money to spend. And not only will we go see the movie in theaters, we will also buy the DVD. Hell, we’ll even buy the box set of the whole season on Blu-Ray. There is money to be made catering to this community with good content. I can’t help blaming “Star Wars” a little bit, especially the last trilogy, which was so dumb and made so much money that it may have influenced filmmakers and studios a little too much. But look at “Alien(s)”, “Lost” (yes, “Lost” was sci-fi, kids), “Minority Report” and even “The Fifth Element”. You can make damn good sci-fi that’s also great entertainment. Instead we get shit like “The Event” and “Skyline”. And don’t even get me started on the superhero movie sub-genre of sci-fi… Does anyone think “Thor” will be any good? Meanwhile even David Fincher can’t get Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rendezvous with Rama” off the ground, and Universal recently chickened out of doing H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountain of Madness” even with Guillermo Del Toro as the director and James Cameron as the producer. Sigh.
One of the biggest issues here is that it’s gotten a lot cheaper to do special effects. This has led to the misunderstanding that that’s the sole reason we go to sci-fi movies. And, sure, that’s part of it. There’s something satisfying about seeing other worlds and their inhabitants come to life. And about large-scale destruction that doesn’t really work well in movies like, say, “The King’s Speech”. Although I’d have paid good money to see Jar Jar Binks teach English to King George, and then blow up Buckingham Palace, when the King failed to pronounce a vowel correctly. But, honestly, it’s like eating McDonald’s food. It satisfies a craving for a minute, then shortly after, you’re disgusted with yourself and you wow never to go back. Until you do.
Anyway, the reason for this rant is the affront to any creature of even a modicum of intelligence that is “Battle: LA”. First off, I would argue that it’s barely even a movie. It could probably have been shot inside the game engine of “Gears of War”. It’s basically a 3rd person shooter game. With dialogue worthy of a game. Although I’d argue that at this point that even games know that if you can get your players emotionally involved with a character’s plight, then you have a stronger story with more engagement. “Battle: LA” truly leaves no cliché unturned. Aaron Eckhart (who must REALLY have needed the money) is slumming as the sergeant with a history of bad judgment who must redeem himself. Michelle Rodriguez plays the usual hard-ass chick (she must be SO tired of playing the same character in every movie) who is mostly there to give women someone to identify with, as they’ve mostly been forced into the theater by their boyfriends. Everyone else is basically cannon fodder.
The aliens? They are from generic alien shelf no 17. There’s nothing new or revolutionary about them. They are not even particularly interesting. They apparently want the Earth for our water. Ho-hum. At least make the invaders intimidating and scary as hell, if you want me to root for the humans. I frankly hoped they would get Eckhart, so he would stop spouting nonsense all the time.
Finally, the ending is about as clever as a bag of hammers. It makes the gloriously stupid Macbook virus solution from “Independence Day” look like a fucking Einstein move.
Let’s hope that “Battle: LA” and “Skyline” means that we’ve hit rock bottom. The only way is up: Head for the second star to the right, and straight on till morning.
ADAM:
War is hell. With smog. ”Battle of Los Angeles” was a war movie I was looking forward to, but I had many reservations; far too often the promise of a great Sci-fi action movie is never delivered upon and what we’re left with is either hokey dialogue, an implausible and unsatisfying resolution, characters we don’t care about and more questions than answers — and not the good ones, like “what happens after Richard Dreyfuss takes off in the spaceship at the end of Close Encounters?” Nothing wrong with dangling that little carrot in front of the audience as the credits roll. But in Battle of Los Angeles, we have all three; hokey dialogue, an unsatisfying conclusion and characters we don’t care about. They combine to deliver a less than satisfying experience for the brain and heart; the visuals, which are a pretty decent feast for the eyes, can’t carry this movie and thus “Battle” becomes pretty forgettable by the time you get home.
Now, I’m not saying it’s all bad; it’s not. The action and look are pretty damn nice, in fact I’d liken the visual experience to that of watching a pretty adept player working his or her way through a sortie battle of a very refined and realistic PS3 or XBOX 360 video game. And I actually enjoyed the fact that the “war” model was used, rather than the “disaster” model as far as story is concerned; this isn’t another introduction to a plethora of characters from all walks of life and subsequently an intercutting of how they all deal with the madness. This is about the members of one unit, and how they make their way through the battlefield during the invasion. I think this strategy in storytelling was a good choice. And probably where the good choices ended. Aaron Eckhart is saddled with some of the worst dialogue I’ve heard in a while, particularly when he’s forced to keep up morale of his subordinates, who challenge his caring about his men and ability to lead after a previous battle where he lost an entire platoon. Eckhart’s response to justify how much he cares and the guilt he carries with him: every lost soldier’s name and ID number from memory. Now, color me practical, but maybe if this guy spent more time on the firing range and less time memorizing inconsequential numbers from the past, this crew might find a way to turn the proverbial tide rather than finding several alien caps in their asses. And there’s yet another moment of dramatic mastery when Eckhart tries to raise the spirits of a ten year old boy who just watched his father die, by making him an honorary Marine and reminding him he must be tough and not give up now (presumedly like the kid’s decomposing dad in the next room did, giving up on life with his last breath.) How charming.
And though some of the alien ships are cool, we never see them up close. The aliens are very reminiscent of the “Independence Day” variety, but again we only see so much — enough for the Marines to figure out where they must be shot in order to kill them. And then the movie really gets weak. It’s by the numbers, you know who will win, even if some lives are lost. My last random comment? The film features the ever gorgeous Bridget Moynahan, and ever annoying, but still fairly hot Michelle Rodriguez, and manages to make them both as dumpy looking as possible. I know there are casualties in war. But a sense of sexuality shouldn’t be a casualty of the war movie genre. All in all, Battle of Los Angeles lived up to my expectations by underwhelming me. I’m tempted to make a bad, pun-laden, Marine joke… We’ll let’s just sat I thought it was [Hoo - Ra] - ble.
