Been quite some time since I had a review up, mostly because there hasn’t been anything I have been interested in since RED. Went to see Battle: Los Angeles this afternoon, and I will give it a solid B+.
Was there a lot of dialogue? Nope. Was the dialogue super awesome? Nope. Was the story line super deep? Nope. But, it was a simple story about an alien invasion of Earth, with dialogue that was brief and made sense in the moment. There was no speechifying, ala Independence Day. Just stuff everyday people, and everyday Marines, would utter.
As for the story line, it goes something like this: Aaron Eckhart plays a 20 year marine who has just turned in his retirement papers, due to stand down after his current crop of Marine trainees are through basic. When the aliens invade, he is tasked to a platoon. They are supposed to simply go into a zone in Santa Monica and search for civilians before…well, see the movie to find out. They fight battles, and work hard to save the civilians. The Marines are treated with respect by the film makers. No silly liberal ‘gung ho” lines, no stupid heroics, and they even mostly act like Marines. They move like Marines, shoot like Marines who know how to use a gun, and have tactics like Marines.
If you do not like shaky cam, stay away. It is done well, though. And this movie is about a small group of people, one platoon and the civilians they encounter, not the aliens. Interpersonal drama on what is a heavy battlefield.
One funny exchange which might have been lost in all the gun play was when Michelle Rodriquez’s character shot an alien and she gets splatter in the face. She says “I got that stuff all over my mouth!” to which another character retorts “you let him do that to you on the first date?”
The ending is most satisfying, and could lead to a sequel. Or not. Either way, everyone, including myself, left the theater quite satisfied.
And Roger Ebert hated it, so, it must be good.
A little FYI, this was filmed in Shreveport.
Probably would have been less expensive had they used Detroit. It already looks like a war zone
They used an old part of the city and shut down the interstate for a few months. Shows you how desperate we are for jobs.
Kinda tells you something when the film industry doesn’t want to film a movie about LA in LA. They probably saved a bunch of money on taxes and union labor.
If you do not like shaky cam, stay away.
Shaky cam = immediate fail.
Well, if they do it at the right times, it’s OK. District 9 and Cloverfield did it well. And a few others. Can’t watch Blair Witch. Clash of the Gods made poor use of it. Battle LA did it well. It fit, like during the battle scenes
The next thing you know, you’ll tell me that the dutch tilt used in the HBO series on John Adams was “okay.”
;)
I completely agree with your review. I also found a lot of “reviewers” seemed to take issue with the pro-military tone.
I saw that around too, Locke. Some were down right PO’d about it.