Aliens decide to start spring break early in LA.
Artwork by Hayden Johnson
This past weekend, the alien invasion flick Battle: Los Angeles finally hit theatres with a resounding U.S. Marines “ooh-rah!” The film delivered plenty of action and suspense, but ultimately failed as a result of bad writing with predictable clichés.
Battle: Los Angeles follows a platoon of marines in its tour of Santa Monica and Los Angeles. Unlike most war movies the platoon of American soldiers is engaging in combat with nefarious foes from outer space rather than terrorists or Nazis for a change. The Marines are sent on a mission to rescue a group of civilians holed up in a Santa Monica police station. Of the fairly large cast of Marines in the platoon, very few of them have brief moments of introduction in an attempt to create a captivating back story. While this development is necessary, it’s clear that the main focus of the director Jonathan Liebesman wasn’t to capture the emotions of the diverse cast, but to dazzle viewers with special effects and shaky camera movements that place the audience directly into the action.
There are many interesting characters but they become nothing more than clichéd templates that aren’t any more endearing than the alien drones they’re fighting. There’s the inexperienced lieutenant who is in over his head and the traumatized sergeant who was two days from retirement and reluctantly called back to duty, the wise-cracking joker, and, of course, the helpless romantic who only wants to survive to see his newlywed other half again. These characters work together well despite the fears and distractions that are on their mind.
The crimson-chinned actor, (Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight) plays Staff Sergeant Michal Nantz who reluctantly becomes the de-facto leader of the platoon when Lieutenant William Martinez (played by Ramon Rodriguez, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) becomes mentally unstable and crumbles under the pressure of keeping his men alive. Eckhart has the deepest role of the crew, displaying layers of emotion, going off into John Wayne heroics when he is in the heat of the action, and spitting out numerous and hackneyed inspirational speeches to his men throughout. The bad writing is compensated for by some good acting from leads like Eckhart and his co-stars who work with what they have.
The best thing about the movie has to be the special effects and the building suspense before the action begins. The camera angles generate a sense of claustrophobia that build up tension until the big bang. The close-ups on the marines’ faces schizophrenically pan from one to another as they creep through a fog-filled LA neighborhood trying to avoid the aliens. Liebesman is a veteran horror film director so he is at his best when directing these scenes. When the action actually starts, the effects for the aliens and their weapons are both realistic and frightening. It’s hard to enjoy this, however, when the camera never pans out to see the scope of the action at a different angle.
Because of the lack of a good plot the film suffers from prolonged emotional interludes in the action, and as such, there is never really a good spot for the movie to end. This makes the pacing of the movie awkward. Audiences might be peeking at their watches or phones to see when the movie will end during downtime and repetitive action sequences.
Battle: Los Angeles is a film that I personally enjoyed because I was fully prepared for some good, dumb fun. Fortunately that’s what I got with just a little bit extra in terms of acting and suspense. This is no District 9 or War of the Worlds; there is no profound message or heart wrenching drama.
