Release Date: 3/11/11
Battle: LA, directed by Jonathan Liebesman (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), is an alien invasion action film set in the present day. It follows a group of marines as they defend the city from a vicious attack. The movie acts as a pre-summer popcorn flick which will definitely hold over action junkies for the next couple of months, before the big boys hit screens. The film for the most part is entertaining with solid fire powered war scenes and fine special effects. It lacks a unique original story with a good script, and solid character development, to make it truly great. It had potential to be the District 9 of the year but ends up being more of a poor man’s Independence Day.
Battle: LA revolves around a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) who is on his way out of service until unexplained meteors start falling to Earth. He is then assigned to his new platoon, where they later find out they will be in a battle against an alien invasion. Their mission is to try and save some remaining civilians on the streets of Los Angeles before the army bombs the entire coast. The Colonels and Lieutenants that make up the rest of the platoon are played by Michelle Rodriguez, Ramon Rodriguez, Gine Anthony Pesi, Ne-Yo, and James Hiroyuki Liao to name a few.
Character development is an important part of any movie, be it a big budget action film or an indie drama, if we don’t feel for the characters then the outcome isn’t as effective. Battle: LA’s biggest downfall is the development of its characters. In the beginning of the film it jumps around from character to character with little back-story and maybe it doesn’t seem to be a concern at first but it makes scenes later in the film less successful. Eckhart did the most he could with a weak script, there’s a couple times where he is engaged in an emotional confrontation and he is very convincing. He is definitely getting better with age and after The Dark Knight and Rabbit Hole you can definitely see him growing as an actor. If any young nobody was cast as the lead of this film it could have turned out a lot worse.
The director’s style was a cause for concern in the first act. The hand-held camera was way over-the-top and took me out of the story several times, usually to rub my eyes because I was getting dizzy. He tried to go for that raw authentic look like the Scott brother’s but it only really worked during the intense war scenes. It calmed down later in the film as I didn’t notice it as much. The future is bright for Liebesman though as he showed much potential at making a high octane actioner, he might just want to find a better screenwriter to script his films because there were enough cheesy one-liners to make any Michael Bay fan cringe. The movie turned out to be a huge success at the box office as well, taking the top spot for the weekend and looking to add to it in the next several weeks.
The last 30 minutes of the film saved this flick from whacked and put it into the mediocre territory. I must say I was completely sucked in to the ending battle, any Marine is sure to be jacked up as it ends up being a pretty bad-ass climax. Battle: LA is sure to entertain a lot of Americans because it knows what they love to watch, Liebesman just needs to work on story, character development and dialogue before he can gain the respect of this wiseguy.
IMDB: 6.7
Rotten Tomatoes: 32%
Moviewiseguys: 6.5/10