Cinema Verdict Review: Battle: Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles

OPENING: 03/11/2011

STUDIO: Columbia Pictures

RUN TIME: 116 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
03.11.11

Opening Statement
About midway through the first half of Jonathon Liebesman’s Battle: Los Angeles I realized the film was not going to fulfill my lofty expectations. Alas my instincts proved correct. LA disappoints on every level imaginable. The heroes sent to eradicate a swarm of alien marauders lack personality and dimension. Likewise the aliens fail to leave an impression, as they are poorly designed, badly imagined and lacking in initiative. What is the point of sacking a city if you possess neither the logic nor the abilities to pull off the task?

Facts of the Case
The world is under attack–again–by alien forces who are attempting to seize the world’s water supply. Into the fold drops Staff Seargant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) who must lead a rag tag group of Marines through an intense battle to save Los Angeles.

The Evidence
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Battle: LA is that it never reaches its full potential. Liebesman’s film strives for the brilliant combat sequences of Black Hawk Down meshed with the close encounters of War of the Worlds, but instead comes across as a hybrid of the awful Independence Day and the badly executed Vietnam flick We Were Soldiers. And so, LA feels flat, hokey, and even contrived. There’s nary a moment of spectacle found within as even the action scenes feel redundant and poorly executed; lacking the type of visual excitement maestros such as Michael Bay, Ridley Scott and James Cameron typically demonstrate.

What we have here is a B-movie extravaganza that might have enjoyed a successful run (and fewer explosions) on the Syfy channel. On the big screen Battle: Los Angeles trips and tumbles, like its alien invaders, over its own ineptitude.

Filled with the sort of campiness that would make even Roger Corman blush, Battle: LA dissolves under its inability to adequately capture the horrors it strives so hard to achieve. Aliens attack, people die, cities fall, but not in the way you expect. While the City of Angels lingers in the backdrop, Liebesman, who brought us Darkness Falls and the insufferable Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, focuses his story on a handful of grunts, choosing to steer clear of the mass carnage in favor of a smaller, personable plot. That’s fine if you’re making “Skirmish in LA,” finer still if you present characters who are meaningful, or worthwhile, but when the title of your film promises a “battle” you better damn well deliver something epic.

The problem here is that Liebersman and screenwriter Christopher Bertolini (The General’s Daughter) offer little in the way of narrative intrigue, or imagination. The aliens’ design drips with blandness; like a rip off of those found in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, except with fishbowls instead of heads. They’re simply not intimidating enough to worry about. Even their ships, which at times look like those found in a Lego collection, offer nothing in the way of visual stimulation. Films like Independence Day may have sucked, but at least they offered imagination, not to mention humor.

The heroes in LA, led by the estimable Aaron Eckhart, die too quick and too often to care about. None possess much in the way of personality–they’re defined by their accents. Some were southern, one was a girl. And they’re stupid. At one point, after watching an escaping helicopter go down in flames, the squad’s Lieutenant (Ramon Rodriguez) suggests boarding a bus to clear the vicinity before it explodes. “We have to get out of here fast!” he exclaims, failing to deduce the incomprehensible logic of this statement. Surprisingly the bus actually proves quite acute to their situation later on, which causes the audience to believe a) the Lieutenant was not as dumb as he initially appeared, or b) the aliens are not altogether bright or threatening. If you can’t slow down a friggin’ bus, then what makes you think you stand a chance against an army toting weapons of mass destruction?

Such is the logic of Battle: LA, a film that narrows the aliens’ objective down to obtaining water to power their machines. Okay. I’m no general, but I could literally think of dozens of ways in which to set about fulfilling such a task. Here’s a thought: don’t land near a fortified military installation. Or better yet, land in Antarctica and strategize from there. Actually, the aliens could have just asked politely and I’m sure America would have obliged…

I guess that’s the problem with alien invasion flicks. On the one hand you must demonstrate the awesome power of an extraterrestrial species capable of overthrowing the world in a single swoop, but then you must also find and exploit their weakness, or else the film would end on a (gasp!) dark note. The humans must prevail; otherwise there would be no story. Independence Day destroyed its alien foes by uploading a virus into the “Microsoft-ran Alien Hard Drive.” HG Wells (and Spielberg) wiped out their foes with germs. M. Night Shyamalan vanquished his with water and a baseball bat. Tim Burton used country music. None of these scenarios proved satisfactory, leaving audiences hankering for something more…believable.

Sadly, LA does not correct this narrative flaw. In actuality, it attempts something much simpler.

Take, for example, the location of the “mother ship,” which controls the numerous drones occasionally seen soaring across the skyline, and which must be destroyed in order for our heroes to prevail. Something so important should be located outside the battlegrounds, out of harm’s way, or at least protected by more than a few inadequate aliens. Nope. Here the ship rests within a few clicks of the action, guarded only by a few worthless drones, and a half dozen or so alien sentinels. Huh? Shouldn’t the main ship or the one controlling your entire army, be situated elsewhere, and surrounded by fleets of your best fighters?

I understand the need to bend logic at times for the sake of cinematic spectacle, especially when aliens are concerned, but for a film striving so hard to achieve realism, Battle: LA feels amazingly absurd. In other words, District 9 this is not.

Earlier I stated my “lofty expectations” accrued during the massive (and impressive) marketing campaign. The TV ads, trailers and posters suggested something new and unique, a fresh, exciting take on the alien invasion flick. Perhaps I carried too much hope into the theater, or maybe I’ve seen too many movies. All I can say is that a film’s purpose is to entertain, enlighten or inspire. Battle: LA achieved none of these, but it sure made me laugh. At least it was better than Skyline.

Closing Statement
Battle: Los Angeles reaches for greatness, but falls short thanks to poor production qualities, a mediocre script and bland special effects.

The Verdict
5/10