My Favourite Movies: Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

The teaser trailer for this certainly intrigued me but I thought ‘oh, another alien invasion flic’ and moved on. Then I heard some of the criticism: that it was like watching over someone’s shoulder as they played Call of Duty (a game I was actually playing at the time) or that, after the obligatory 10 minutes introducing the characters we had 2 hours of unrelenting combat…. OK, those ‘criticisms’ sold me and I arranged a ‘boy’s night out’.

As with most of these things the movie did exactly what it said on the tin (or trailer). A comment ‘Black Hawk Down with Aliens’ kind of encapsulates the whole thing – except BHD was better. At the start we see US Marine Staff Sargent Nantz played by Aaron Eckhart who, I must admit, I have a soft spot for despite his unfortunate tendency to indulge in overacting, just about the jack everything in after getting his unit combat ready and shipped off to Afghanistan/Iraq. Everything is put on hold when they’re called to aid in an evacuation of Santa Barbara because of an expected meteor strike off the coast. What they realise very quickly (thanks to NASA) is that the meteors are landing/impacting at less than terminal velocity – they’re slowing down. All across the planet things are landing and moving inshore in an organised military style attack – we are at war! As coastal areas are quickly overrun the marines are sent in the hold the line. Nantz’s group (led by newly minted 2nd Lt Martinez – played by Ramon Rodriguez) is sent into the combat zone to recover civilians trapped in a police station. On the face of it it’s a simple in and out operation. But almost immediately the squad come under enemy fire and are taking casualties. Everyone, including Nantz, need to man up and grow up very quickly indeed if they are going to complete their mission and get back to the FOB (Forward Operating Base) alive before the whole of Santa Barbara is levelled by the Air Force.

Right, first the criticisms…. The acting is variable to say the least and rarely gets above the average. There’s a lot of over-the-top patriotism throughout the movie and a reverence (and I don’t hesitate to use that word) about all things Marine. Often this goes right up to the edge of sickly sweet acceptability but only just manages to restrain itself from going too far and descending into farce. The emotional outbursts of the soldiers I found deeply irritating. OK, they’re in combat and under stress but they caused so much noise that the enemy had no problem at all finding them blindfold. Such behaviour might be normal in the Marines but it doesn’t make it any less irritating.

Now the good bits….. The storyline was pretty good once you get over the idea that they’re here to steal our water. I can go with conquer us to get at our resources and I ignored the water idea – especially when on day ONE reported sea levels are already dropping! I liked that we were kept informed of the larger picture/storyline from TV reports & the Internet. That felt real. I really liked the combat elements which felt graphic, messy and realistic from what I’ve seen on TV news. I liked that the aliens where pretty alien but close enough to us (roughly humanoid) not to be completely silly. Their technology was quite believable too except maybe their lack of much in the way of armoured vehicles.

This is essentially a 21st century war movie that happens to have aliens in it. Much superior to Independence Day which it resembles at times this is a down in the dirt, front line view of fighting an unknown enemy where the price of failure is the loss of everything. A little silly, a little overblown, somewhat over sentimental and probably too self-aware (and not always in a good way) this is still an entertaining film despite its many faults. Have a good few pinches of salt handy and a big bowl of popcorn and you should enjoy it too. Oh, and before I forget Michelle Rodriguez is in it as Tech Sargent Elena Santos. Needless to say she kicks alien butt – if they have butt’s to kick.