While "Skyline" centred around a group of confused and terrified civilians in an apartment block, Jonathan Liebesman's "Battle: Los Angeles" places its attention on the shooting and shouting military as they fight not only for their country, but for the entire world. Not much pressure, then.
On what looks like a regular sunny day, it is discovered that a shower of asteroids is about to collide with Earth -- for some strange reason they went undetected until entering our atmosphere. They are also slowing down. News reporters go mental, get their cameramen in position, and go even more mental when the meteors land in the oceans and gangs of metallic soldiers clamber out of the water -- these space-dwellers do not come in peace.
As explosive chaos brews in several major cities around the globe, Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart, "Rabbit Hole") rounds up his new platoon to get into alien-slaughtering action in the City of Angels. He and his crew are told to "kill anything that is not human." I guess that means they're supposed to go around throwing grenades at family pets.
Travelling on foot, they wander through half-deserted neighbourhoods, rifles cocked, looking out for the hostile extraterrestrials in the dusty air. Inevitably losing some marines and civilians along the way, they find out they have to get out of the area before a big military bomb blows them all to kingdom come.
"Battle: Los Angeles" can best be described as one overly drawn-out action sequence. Lasting nearly two hours, it's only on an especially rare occasion that the kabooms, whizzes, bangs, trigger-pulling noises and rocket launcher-blasting mayhem takes a break. And I have to say the film is exhausting.
It would be fair to state that the movie is like a video game, a first-person shooter if you will. All main characters are army marines, always with their firearms clenched between their mits as they carefully inspect buildings and pump slugs into otherworldly beings. It's also akin to a video game in that it's like watching one of your mates controlling the brand-spanking new "Call of Duty," and they won't let you have a go. Frustrating, isn't it?
The script lumbers the film with cliches straight out of the war movie textbook. Characters recite heart-wrenching speeches while orchestral music plays in the background, intended to move one's heart -- I dunno about you, but my heart remained cold and bitter as usual. The injured bravely suicide bomb areas to protect the others and let them escape. "Marines never quit," says an emotional Eckhart to a fellow soldier. I was half-expecting to hear "Goonies never say die" at some point.
Each and every character is as wooden as a park bench, barely even worth an attempt at sympathising with -- it would be like feeling sorry for a bookcase facing a wood chipper. While Eckhart puts in a good performance, there's nothing for him to grasp onto other than an unexplained past incident in which his character accidentally got an entire platoon killed. The dimple on the actor's humongous chin is more interesting.
All of the other marines can be summed up with brief phrases, given nothing else for us to care about or remember them by. One is married with a pregnant wife, another has a fiancé at home, there's one suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and there's a hard-ass Mexican lady (of course played by Michelle Rodriguez). We don't care about them, not even wincing when they're crushed under cars or blown to smithereens. They're just crash test dummies ready to be destroyed.
The aliens themselves are quite threatening without saying a word, only having to fire their out-of-this-world artillery and trash up the city of Los Angeles. They're humanoid figures, covered in polished armour, requiring a hell of a lot of gunfire to finally be taken down. They also have advanced technology (what film aliens don't?), from carnage-inducing weaponry to sky-zooming space crafts. They're mute, yet their dialogue is better than that of the humans.
The film is basically a combination of Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor" and Michael Bay's "Transformers." I'm actually rather shocked that Mr. Bay's name is not included in the opening titles or end credits; I’m maybe too familiar with projects like this having his name gloriously splattered all over it in silver, glistening font. Still, I'm sure he was anonymously lurking through the set somewhere, sneakily tweaking the film to fit his vision. Heh, vision.
Playing more like a recruitment video for the Marine Corps than anything else, "Battle: Los Angeles" is a huge letdown. The film seems to be trying too hard to get audience members to stand up from their seats, swing their fists in the air and passionately belt out the American national anthem. Its soundtrack consists purely of erratic gunfire, missile sound effects and the ricocheting of ammunition. While it is definitely host to some entertaining action, it ultimately is just an exasperating montage of banging, shooting and relentless clanging. Lord only knows where all the bullets come from.
5/10
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