Review“Shit, I'd rather be in Afghanistan.” - Corpsman Jibril AdukwuStaff Sargent Michael Nantz is getting old and feels he no longer has anything to offer the Marine Corp. He resigns stating he will train his current batch of recruits and then leave the Corp. Unfortunately for the Sargent an Alien invasion brings him back into active duty as he replaces another Sargent on short notice and gets lumbered with a Platoon that hasn't seen combat before. With the Aliens making more of a mess of L.A than Paris could hope to do on a good night, Nantz, his Officer Martinez, and the Platoon are sent on a rescue mission to get some civilians out of the Alien occupied region of L.A. Naturally things go to hell in a hand basket as our boys have to fight their way to the civilians, rescue them, and then track down the location of an Alien command center in order to light it up for a missile strike. So how was your weekend? Hollywood all is forgiven Bro! - well at least on the Alien Invasion movie front. After the appallingly bad Independence Day and the abysmal Skyline we finally get a movie that does true justice to the whole concept of Alien invasion! As a war movie Battle: Los Angeles (BLA) rocked, as an alien invasion flick the CGI had me high fiving fellow cinema patrons, and as an adrenaline ride I was on the edge of my seat living every fire-fight and cheering on the good guys as they fought immeasurable odds with square jawed resolution. We even got Michelle Rodriguez (TSgt. Elena Santos) doing her thing, which is always value for money in my book of counted sorrows. Perhaps the only weakness in the movie was the background stories of the Marines, Director Jonathan Liebesman spends copious time introducing them, but apart from the Sarg's previous issues, it all gets dropped as the Alien hammer goes down. Did we really need to know one dude was getting married, and another one had a baby on the way? Probably not, besides painting our warriors as ordinary people with their own lives to lead, as it has zero impact on the rest of the movie. I know Liebesman was trying for the epic here, but maybe he needed to see a few more war movies to get how the background thing works, it's got to have some impact on the movie and it has to be brought home forcibly to the Audience. Hey but no chick time here, this is a dudes movie, we want action, gunfire, and an alien menace. We paid our bucks to be impressed by the visuals and not by the Mills and Boon emo stuff! Actually anyone work out the purpose of the Intro scene and then the flashback? The Director was no doubt trying for something there but as a movie structure it kind of fell flat on it's arse at a crucial junction. Where Director Liebesman and Writer Christopher Bertolini have got it completely right is with the unknown nature of the Aliens. We learn about them at the same time as the Marines discover their secrets. Each new revelation had me nodding my head in approval as we gradually learnt about their weaknesses, their strengths, and exactly what they were after. Strangely all Alien invaders seem to follow the Independence Day model of having one central control that once taken out spells problems for the invaders. You can draw your own parallels to the former Soviet Union military structure which I'm betting Liebseman wasn't doing. Any-wise the Aliens are threatening, hence the horror elements, but thankfully can be taken down in a blaze of gun fire. The movie is purely from the Marines' point of view, and Liebesman puts the Audience right into the fire-fights erupting around LA. No doubt this hasn't sat well with the folks who want multiple angles and a more polished approached, but I was rocking with the sheer chaos going down and the Marines having to find their targets as the Aliens were proving to be pretty elusive in the opening exchanges. Notably as Alien reinforcements arrive, via ultra cool crash landing in the Ocean, there were more of them on the ground as a beachhead was established and the occupation cordon expanded outwards. Nice work there from Liebesman as we got a real feeling of Alien build up, real storming the beaches of Normandy stuff. Of course an Alien invasion flick is going to need a lot of CGI and post production work to nail the visuals and BLA delivers on this front like a wild night out in KL. The screen is filled with Alien hardware, Alien troops, and aerial battles that don't give the Audience a moment's rest as Liebesman rocks on at an ever frantic pace. When fire-fights erupt, and we get a constant stream of them, there's so much going on that this movie demands a big screen viewing to get the full impact. Once again I would reiterate you are right there with the Marines as they try and find targets as heavy fire is sent their way. Along with the troopers we are trying to guess where the incoming rounds are coming from. Writing on BLA Critic Roger Ebert had this to say, “If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots”. Roger take the carrot out of your arse bro! BLA is a high adrenaline war movie, with Aliens, it doesn't attempt to be anything else and gets the job done. Going into this movie you know exactly what you are going to get and Director Liebesman delivers on that front. Everyone has an opinion Roger, mine is that BLA is mighty fine if you are after a war movie that puts you on the front-line. Recommended movie to dudes after an adrenaline rush who are not overly concerned with character development. Hell yes!
ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ... Finally an Alien Invasion flick that rocks the house down!
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