Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Just perfect...

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

I know many people have rated this movie poorly. That's unfortunate because they miss many excellent points about the movie. First, this is really a good enactment of small unit action in a difficult situation. Troops put into action against an apparent superior opponent, trying to save a city. Throw in a hardened SSgt that his troops don't like for various misplaced reasons and the development of an esprit d corps among all the characters combine to make an enjoyable movie. It's not that predictable. Just cool your jets, sit back and enjoy.

Felt more that this was a made for tv movie and would not have paid to see in movie theatres or paid to see it anywhere. Glad it was free on tv so I could turn it off.

Another year, another obligatory mediocre war blockbuster with the inclusion of A-listers in a bid to make money. Surprisingly I can survive the mediocrity embedded in those films...this however is a different story. Earth is attacked by extraterrestrials in which we follow a group of marines who are tasked in securing Los Angeles, which coincidentally hosts the control tower for the alien drones. In a modern day situation like this, you have to think to yourself "why didn't they just nuke the city and be done with it?". I wish they did, I wouldn't have had to sit through this long overdrawn soulless mess. The struggle was real as I battled myself to not fall asleep watching this snooze inducing catastrophe. Eckhart does his best to lead a mediocre supporting cast, I can see him trying so damn hard! But then his squad talk and it all goes terribly wrong. A horrific screenplay consisting of numerous plot details, no characterisation and a forced patriotic tone that comes across as cheesy. The amount of self-sacrificing and "I'm doing this alone" babble is enough to make those aliens retreat and find another planet to reap resources from. I feel nothing for this squad, they are just a means for shooting bullets at the enemy. I honestly didn't care who won, whether it was the dull humans of the blandly designed aliens. Any attempt of character development was forced and felt artificial. The narrative structure followed a simple iteration: blah blah, "we are marines, we are meant for this!", pew pew, "tell my wife I love her!", explosion...and it repeats those steps for the entire two hour runtime. I guess the drone ships were interesting atleast, and who would've thought that Ne-Yo would be one of the better actors! Yet the unmemorable action sequences were plagued with constant zoom ins, shaky cam and quick cuts to which I could not see anything amid the chaos. The whole film is just so loud that I became immune! Battle: Los Boredom more like.

There are a lot of disparaging comments to read about this. I still think the opening beach landing sequence was one stupendous humdinger of a science fiction film achievement. And the rest of it is a competent hollywood war movie of the 'this just keeps gettin' better and better' combat-patrol formula. At this point, I'm starting to feel sorry for those who didn't read sci-fi when it was still young, when things written couldn't be made any form of tangible, to be able to appreciate seeing things that previously could only be seen in your head.