Although the bad guys are from the far reaches of space, Jonathan Liebesman’s Battle: Los Angeles, is, in essence, a war film. More accurately, it is a not particularly good war film. Following a group of US marines in Los Angeles on the morning of an extraterrestrial assault, the film takes the plot of a million alien invasion movies and attempts to combine it with the gritty, on-the-ground aesthetic of films like The Hurt Locker and Black Hawk Down. The intensity of the filmmaking from Oscar winning directors Kathryn Bigelow and Ridley Scott, respectively, ensures that the sometimes weak characterizations in those films never seriously detract from the visceral experience of war they create. Sadly, Liebesman has nowhere near the same levels of directorial expertise, and the competently directed action sequences in his film have no chance of masking the atrocious dialogue, paper thin characters and confused political ideology that make Battle: Los Angeles impossible to recommend.
The movie begins by throwing us into the middle of a firefight, not unlike Gareth Edwards’ low budget alien allegory Monsters from earlier in the year. With a night vision lens and wild, frenetic camera movement, Liebesman’s handling of scenes like this – and there are several – is far and away the best part of the film, as he skillfully depicts the chaos of urban warfare. Unfortunately the film then flashes back to before the invasion, in what can only be described as one of the most half-arsed, disingenuous attempts to establish characters that I have ever witnessed. Although on screen text lets us know each of their name, the soldiers can more readily be identified by the single tired war movie stereotype that they embody; the rookie, the veteran, the incompetent officer, the token African America, etc, etc. The acting is not necessarily bad, but even the normally excellent Aaron Eckhart fails to bring an ounce of originality to his performance, sometimes I blame more on Liebesman’s direction than on any of the no-name cast.
The film springs to life again briefly towards the end of its first act, with its excellent depiction of the first wave assault. Viewed first via news footage, then by helicopters in the air, before finally from the perspective of the troops on the ground, the devastation shown is indiscriminant and overwhelming, and conjures up images of real life warfare. More specifically, it reminds one of the “shock and awe” bombing campaign of Baghdad by the US military at the beginning of the war in Iraq. This film, especially in its first half, could be read as a metaphor for the war; a nation invaded by a far superior military force, bombed into submission before ground skirmishes can begin (not to mention the fact that the reason for the invasion is so the aliens can harvest our natural resources). The United States has never been on the receiving end of the kind of brutal military assaults they so regularly hand out, and regardless of one’s political stance, Battle: Los Angeles could have said something genuinely interesting about US military intervention and the motivations behind it.
Unfortunately, while better science fiction films like Monsters or District 9 use their aliens as ways to give voice to real life social issues, Battle: Los Angeles is far too content to be just another sub-par action film, and drops any kind of intellectual arguments at the first sign of a shootout (some would argue District 9 did the same thing in its ending, although I can assure you it was to a far less egregious degree). While the first gun battle is made exciting enough by a fear of the unknown, as more and more is revealed about the aliens, the less and less interesting the film becomes. The introduction of a central mission – to rescue a group of civilians from an abandoned police station – seriously narrows the movies scope, and the pacing soon falls in a heap. A confrontation scene towards the end of the second act provokes a speech that attempts to be moving, but instead feels tedious and clichéd. Meanwhile, Brian Tyler’s one note score seems to want to inspire patriotic gusto, but serves only to distract.
The Iraq War metaphor collapses further in the stupidity of the second half. While in an early scene two marines wonder if the invading ground troops are just grunts following orders, we soon get to watch – the film would like us to relish in – scene after scene of US soldiers mercilessly gunning down their enemies. One particularly ugly sequence depicts marines running down aliens in their humvee, complete with triumphant music and mindless ooh-ra’s. It is as though because these creatures don’t bleed red, we are meant to enjoy their deaths, despite the fact that these scenes are the equivalent of showing Iraqi soldiers gloating over the bodies of dead Americans. These moments of increasing meaningless culminate in a preposterous climax stolen straight out of Independence Day (although without any of the fun); one that leaves all attempts at verisimilitude cowering in the dust. There is nothing worse than watching a blockbuster that seems to reaching for something greater only to descend into brainless violence and ineffective thrills, and Battle: Los Angeles rapidly becomes an exercise that is neither smart nor entertaining.
It’s almost worse that there was the brief promise of a parallel to the war in Iraq. Shoot. And this one looks kinda-sorta interesting to see, too. It would be nice to see something along these lines that was able to combine smart and entertaining properly.
We got into this pretty well in the last Cinecast but here goes anyway…
I guess I need to rewatch Black Hawk Down, but to me this wasn’t much different. The character set-up that everyone keep wracking on for being blunt, cliche and stupid is not untrue. However, it’s only a very quick setup and doesn’t really matter once the fighting starts. It isn’t really to give character insight I don’t believe, but rather to just give an idea of the things we stand to lose should we not win the day. It’s a little corny, but it’s a blip on the radar and pretty easy to overlook.
“It is as though because these creatures don’t bleed red, we are meant to enjoy their deaths, despite the fact these scenes are the equivalent of showing Iraqi soldiers gloating over the bodies of dead Americans.”
I’m not sure I buy the second part of this sentence. Maybe, but i didn’t see that at all. As for the first part, yeah. Of course you’re supposed to be relishing their deaths. This is essentially a revenge picture at this point. This is a merciless bunch of aliens that obliterated millions of people. Yes you’re supposed to be happy when they die. Mindless? Maybe, sure. But I don’t agree that the movie isn’t entertaining. Is it disappointing that it didn’t do some of the things that the trailer “promised?” Sure. But as an action movie with guns and bazookas blowing shit up real good, I thought it was pretty awesome.
Two other aspects of the film people seem to be perceiving as weakness that are focused on:
One, Aaron Eckhart’s performance. I thought it was fine for what it is. There are more than one or two corny and eye-rolling lines, but for what he’s given I thought it was pretty decent. In fact, despite the one-dimensionality of the characters and some lame dialogue, I thought almost all of the performances were pretty decent. No one here is a flat out “bad” actor.
Two, believability. This is the one thing I cry complete bullshit on. Every single alien invasion movie (of this type) ever made is completely not believable. If Aliens want our water and have the technology for interstellar travel, I’m sure they could obliterate carbon life forms pretty easily and take what they want pretty much instantly. The fact that these aliens use machine guns and missiles rather than laser beams and photon torpedoes is what this a little more interesting (and cool looking AND SOUNDING!) I thought. Of course it’s preposterous. But so what? It gives an entertainment value that was pretty high in my book.
Oh Andrew. We often agree but this is not one of those cases. This movie is awful. I knew going in it wasn’t going to be good but I had to see it for myself so that when I say that SKYLINE is a better movie I can actually say that yes, I saw both and it’s still the better of the two.
I really liked the opening scene in the movie but when they went back to introduce the characters, I started to lose hope. It’s like one massive advertisement for the Marine Corps. I was surprised we didn’t see an ad at the end telling you to enlist. Good god. The worse part of this is when the team finally arrives at the FOB with the civilians in tow and then break for a what felt like 30 minute but was probably 10 minute lesson on what it really means to be a Marine. Sappy BS is what I call it. Any energy the movie had built up got sucked out in those scenes. And then when it looks like it’s about to end they jump out of the helicopter for another round of meaningless and uninteresting action. And of course it ends on a somewhat positive note. Ugh.
And what was the deal with the fast edits. I wanted a decent look at the aliens and we never got one. There was the dead alien but we only get to see him from afar and then when they do close up, it’s such a mess of stuff that we never get a clear idea of what they look like. I felt jipped. And the action reminded me of Michael Bay and TRANSFORMERS. Too fast. No time to see any of the cool stuff.
This wasn’t even tolerable. I’ll stick to SKYLINE thanks. It might be cheaper and less glossy with fewer explosions but way more interesting than this pile of crapola.
I thought Aaron Eckhart was pretty serviceable. I actually also thought that Michael Pena was really good in his brief moments. My problem with the acting was just that it was typical for this kind of film. I get the impression that the actors all watched a bunch of war films in preparation and just tried to emulate what they saw, and Liebesman just didn’t give them enough notes.
Black Hawk Down is a film I love, even more than The Hurt Locker for example. I rewatched it again immediately after Battle: LA because I knew I wanted to make the comparison. Despite it’s simplistic depiction of Somalian’s that borders of racism, I think what makes BHD infinitely to superior to Battle: LA is that it doesn’t attempt any kind of false sentimentality or phony characterizations. Had Battle: LA just been the battle for its entire runtime, I would have liked it a lot more, but the obligatory character introductions and that long stretch at the airport in the middle actually made the film worse, in my opinion. Plus, while I did really like a lot of the action in Battle: LA (you’re right about it looking and sounding cool), nothing compares to the all out chaos of BHD.
Fair point highlighting that sentence; I actually considered leaving it out, but ultimately I felt it drove my point home. I don’t mind it when an action movie just has stock villains who we want to see die (Independence Day, for example). My problem was, because the movie started down this allegorical path, it was disappointing when they just abandoned in favour the becoming a “revenge picture”, as you put it. I agree; I didn’t feel any sympathy for the merciless aliens obliterating my planet, but I think if the movie were better, I would have. If they were shown to possess some kind of – ironically – humanity, I would have felt something for them, just as I feel something for American soldiers who die in Iraq, despite the fact that they are the invaders. District 9 managed to make its aliens three-dimensional characters, and I just think it’s a shame Battle: LA didn’t attempt the same thing.
As for believability, obviously you’re correct: no alien invasion movie is realistic. But I think once you suspend the disbelief that there are aliens and that they’re plan is a ground invasion, Battle: LA is trying to be a “realistic” war movie (as I say in the first sentence of the review). But I just thought the third act, in which a group of rag-tag soldiers singlehandedly turned to tide of battle, was just preposterous for a “realistic” war movie, one where the bad-guys just happened to be aliens
I also agree with Marina; that scene at the FOB completely sunk the film
I predict everyone bashing this film will enjoy it in five years simply because they’ll be able to see it more clearly for what it is.
The fact that it doesn’t live up to a film like Hurt Locker is not a very appropriate criticism in my view. Different beasts. And boy have I seen worse films…
I thought it was solid man v alien throw down.
Agent said it best: a solid man v alien throw down.
Here’s the take: the battle scenes are good, the camera work at times is more than good, the grunts die as grunts will die in battle, and for us military history freaks, well, yes, sometimes a single squad or platoon of raggedy-ass warriors has changed the course of history.
Biggest problem with the film: it’s unbelievable beyond unbelievability that a race mastering hyperspace travel would decide to duke it out with infantry and armor against an infinitely more primitive technological society. Why not come up with bio or chemical warfare and have it done with? Well, the answer is pretty obvious: Battle LA would have lasted all of three minutes from opening to closing credits while humankind choked to death… Had to give us a fighting chance by sending rather vulnerable infantry into battle, giving away your C and C through a stupid mistake, and by Jove, not performing good prior intel gathering that would have let the invading force know that this species is given to persist in the fight even if it means suicide…
In summary: me and my kids loved it!