Review of Battle: Los Angeles (2011) by Walter M — 17 Jul 2012

Boy, did Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz(Aaron Eckhart) pick the wrong week to leave the marines after twenty years, what with the alien invasion and everything. In the buildup, he is assisnged to Lieutenant William Martinez(Ramon Rodriguez), fresh out of officer candidate school. However, not everybody is happy with Nantz's placement, especially Lockett(Cory Hardrict) who blames him for his brother's death. Regardless, there is a war to fight with this platoon being assigned to escort civilians to a forward operating base before Santa Monica is bombed in a few short hours to stop the aliens' advance. Well, at least, Venice Beach, is okay...

"Battle Los Angeles" is a surprisingly not bad movie that takes a ground level view of an alien invasion, forcing the characters to put together the pieces on the fly, which is accentuated by a good use of handheld camerawork. And yes, I admit it, I would follow Aaron Eckhart to at least purgatory. But the first twenty minutes of the film are unnecessary which only serve to reinforce the many cliches on display, even with the racially diverse cast.(Actually, I think the aliens invade because they are really tired of watching cliched Hollywood films.) It would have been better to get to know the characters on the fly. The movie also wastes a valuable opportunity to do a 'War of the Worlds' type allegory of Iraq or Arghanistan by instead using extraterrestrials simply because they are the one enemy everybody can agree to hate.(Even then, I kind of felt sorry for the one alien who got captured. Yes, I know, I watch too much Doctor Who but still...) If you wanted to pay tribute to soldiers, you did not have to make a science fiction movie and could have probably picked a war, any war.