Battle: Los Angeles (2011) [Blu-ray]
Action | Sci-Fi

It's not war. It's survival.

Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his platoon take on an enemy unlike any they've ever encountered when hostile alien invaders attack in this epic sci-fi action film.

User Comment: *** This review may contain spoilers *** CaliKeane from United States, 23 September 2010 • Just Saw this Film at an advanced screening in Long Beach.

Battle: Los Angeles is the tale of Staff Sargeant Nantz' last day as a marine. Without spelling it out or drawing a diagram, the audience and the marine platoon we are following, are immediately deployed into Los Angeles for reasons they do not know. Soon we learn that indeed Aliens are landing off the shore of LA and killing everyone on the beach. The platoon we are following is sent on a mission to get some survivors from a gas station several miles from the coast. Generic movie ensues.

The film is shot like Bourne with epilepsy. I'm 21 years old and not too old to follow the action on screen, its just really, really, annoying when 80% of the shots are extremely herky jerky close-ups. There is not a single steady shot in the entire film. Not one. The intensity of the effect wears off right after the first alien is killed. After that the movie spiralled downhill deep, deep into the realm of the cliché. I'm going to name a few character's roles that are in this film, see if you can recognize them from other films you've seen. Experienced, hardened leader who gets a new platoon. Young officer straight out of officer's school who can't handle the action. Bad ass chick who can shoot. Soft and sweet nurse who gets picked up along the way. An Asian guy, a black guy, a white dude from the south, and a rookie make up the main part of the platoon. There is a scene where tension is high and its just a damn dog making noise. Start to see where this is going? This movie had some good things going for it. Its use of silence was well done. The blasting boom of the gunshots were startlingly realistic. The alien spacecrafts are awesome. The aliens themselves are pretty cool. Its just that the screenplay is terrible. SOOOOOO cliché in every way. This is your standard war movie just with Aliens. The ending is just as cliché as the rest of the film. Don't fool yourself into thinking it will actually be difficult to beat the aliens. 0 thought involved.

Hopefully Mr. Liebesman has better luck with the final product of Clash 2 than he did with this. Everyone I saw the movie with thought it was pretty bad. Movies like this that I totally enjoyed: District 9, Cloverfield, Avatar (somewhat), City of God (cinematography) and Blackhawk Down. All much, much better than this.

District 9 and the Bourne Identity had a really stupid baby.

Summary: Hoorah, I guess.

User Comment: *** This review may contain spoilers *** chas819 from United States, 15 March 2011 • This movie made Skyline look good! Maybe I missed a key part while I was completely baffled that this is the movie they decided to make when they had millions of dollars to spend. Why? Completely predictable, a cast of characters nobody cares about, and we're required to suspend belief time after time just to move the story along.

Aliens arrive and invade, but it's OK, they don't have air support. How did they get here then? They have very advanced weapons, but apparently have spent no time learning to aim. It takes lots and lots of bullets to kill the aliens at first, but after a while just one will make them explode. And any time our marines make a significant kill, all action stops so they can Hoo Raa each other and dance a bit. Nevermind the firefight, the aliens will wait.

Add in shaky camera work and this mess was virtually unwatchable. Maybe I still have a well developed attention span, so I need more than 10 minutes of action, some filler, 15 minutes of action, more filler, action, filler, lather rinse repeat end.

It's movies like this where I think we should be able to ask for refunds! Maybe punitive damages!

Summary: Spend a 100 million and you get this???

[CSW] -3- This is a straight out war movie. But we have seen war movie before and this one is definitely a one-timer. There wasn't anywhere near enough sci-fi to make this anything more than just a war movie. The shaky camera movement with most shots too close to the action to give you a good idea of what is going on plus too much fog and smoke made this into just another an average war movie that was just enjoyable enough to keep it from being a bad war movie. It is more like Black Hawk Down... with Aliens. So if you're interested in seeing a mediocre war movie once, this is it.
[V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box 10/10 - Good D-Box motion throughout.

º º