It seems every year there’s a new theme for movies. This year – while it’s not necessarily a genre – alien movies seem to be taking over Hollywood.
“Battle: Los Angeles” is one of many movies featuring aliens, with fellow alien flicks “Apollo 18” and “Cowboys and Aliens” coming out later this year.
“Battle: Los Angeles” takes a different approach to the alien invasion genre in that instead of focusing on the aliens attacking the humans head-on, the story instead focuses on a United States Marines platoon fighting one-by-one against overwhelming odds in a war-style film.
As the characters are introduced through corny dialogue, a strange sighting occurs as meteors begin to hit Earth throughout several continents.
The story focuses on attacks in Los Angeles, where meteors strike outside the city in the Pacific Ocean. The humans soon realize that this is no meteor shower but an alien attack.
Staff Sgt. Michael Nantz, played by Aaron Eckhart, is on the brink of retirement, but he is sent out on a mission with his platoon to go into the city and try to retrieve surviving civilians. Here is a catch: Since aliens are having little to no difficulty wiping out humans, the U.S. Air Force decides to bomb the city before sending the platoon out on its mission.
Nantz and his platoon have three hours to retrieve survivors and then leave the area of the bomb’s radius. This is easier said than done, though, as the aliens, are winning. And they are winning big time, which the platoon soon finds out when they reach the city. Surprisingly, the city and its suburbs are in great condition, despite a massive alien attack.
Though they aren’t damage-free, usable cars are still on the streets and all of the houses barely have a scrape on them.
One can’t help but wonder if the movie crew had anybody older than 12 on its set design team.
Set design isn’t the only flaw of this film, which contains them in abundance.
The aliens could have done everyone a favor by zapping the terrible scriptwriting instead of innocent civilians.
It’s not writer Christopher Bertolini’s best work.
In fact, the writing is painfully corny.
In one scene, a Marine kept asking other Marines who took his burrito.
This conversation goes on for about 20 seconds in the middle of preparing for the mission.
Not even Aaron Eckhart can survive the horrible writing that this film has.
However bad the script is, it doesn’t affect the brilliant special effects.
The aliens looked dull, but the visual effects that went with the action were nicely done. It’s really a shame because “Battle: LA” could have been a lot better.
Even though there are countless alien movies out there, the idea behind this had a unique flair.
Fans of alien movies should watch “District 9,” a much a better option.
