Judging by how much the camera wobbles around and how much debris and metal flies all over the place in Battle Los Angeles, you’d think the film was attempting to set a new benchmark for sci-fi actioners. It doesn’t of course - it’s complete rubbish. But it’s enjoyably visceral, noisy rubbish nonetheless, launching the viewer into war-zone hell and never letting up.
It’s also much, much, much better than the loathsome Skyline released last year, proof that special effects artists should not be allowed to fund and produce their own movies (interestingly, the Strause Brothers who directed that worked on the effects here). That film was fatally handicapped by its mangling of an interesting scenario. Battle Los Angeles by contrast hasn’t one iota of originality in its set-up but at least it gets the explosions, shouting and action right.
It pulls in two different directions, attempting to fuse the gung-ho bravado and global alien terror of Independence Day with the hand-held nihilistic attitude of Black Hawk Down. The thing is that’s akin to mixing oil and water, or the cheesy with the gritty. Battle Los Angeles therefore falls between two stools, lacking the easy humour of the former and the attempted realism of the latter.
But of course once the shooting starts, it’s time to disengage brain and all thoughts of superior films. There’s a smidgen of set-up (Aaron Eckhart leaves Army the day before aliens invade Earth; re-joins the army in the battle to save – yes – Los Angeles) but you’d be hard-pressed to distinguish any of the cast of characters once they’ve been burnt, thrown around or had rock-dust cloud their face.
But then that’s not the point is it? We’re here to view a tactical alien invasion from those fighting on the front line and it can’t be argued that the film is lacking in the action department. Eventually it becomes wearing but there is a certain bravado to the sheer amount of explosions and pyrotechnics on display. Inevitably though, for every brutal confrontation, there’s a platitudinous, cringey speech about the importance of being a Marine.
But hey, they’re fighting for Los Angeles, and they need to get the importance of that across somehow. Just a suggestion to the filmmakers – since you filmed in Louisiana, wouldn’t it have been more interesting to make that part of America the site of the battle?
Like I said, just a suggestion.
Rating: 6/10
