Jonathan Liebesman
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Independence Day (1996)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
influenced Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Dialogue Plot Themes
“The Dark Knight’s” Aaron Eckhart maintains a stern upper lip and has to spout a number of cheesy lines without any of the humor that worked so well coming out of Will Smith’s mouth in the similar and superior “Independence Day.”
We’ve seen enough war films (‘Black Hawk Down,’ ‘Saving Private Ryan‘), and we’ve seen our share of alien films (‘Independence Day,’ ‘Starship Troopers,’ ‘District 9‘), and when you combine both of those elements in one film, we’ve also seen plenty of that as well.
The Recipe: One part War of the Worlds, one part generic stoic army guy movie from 1957 set during WWII, one part Independence Day, one part goofy dialogue that makes it seem like the screenwriter watched Airplane!
It's more Hurt Locker than Independence Day.
The script for “Battle: Los Angeles,” by Christopher Bertolini, uses every “save the earth from aliens” cliché it can lay its hand on, like “War of the World” (the bad one with Tom Cruise, not the good one with Gene Barry) and, especially, “Independence Day.” Aaron Eckhart must have known, while making “Battle: Los Angeles,” that he is the star of nonsensical sci-fi drama that relies more on the (well-done) special effects than on good writing.
Rather, Battle: Los Angeles follows the playbook of Independence Day and Godzilla, as filtered through the more manageable budget of the likewise shaky-cam Cloverfield: monsters come to your town and take heavy artillery, as Soldiers and Relatable Innocent Civilians duck for cover.
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Directed by Ridley Scott
influenced Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Visuals Themes Plot
Director Jonathan Liebesman ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning") may want to emulate the grunt's eye view of the battles in "Black Hawk Down," but he's no Ridley Scott: It's often impossible to tell who's doing what to whom.
A sci-fi “Black Hawk Down,” Jonathan Liebesman’s “Battle: Los Angeles” will satisfy any genre-movie buff jonesing for this generation’s “Independence Day.”
It's " Independence Day ," and there's a " Black Hawk Down " in " District 9 "!
We’ve seen enough war films (‘Black Hawk Down,’ ‘Saving Private Ryan‘), and we’ve seen our share of alien films (‘Independence Day,’ ‘Starship Troopers,’ ‘District 9‘), and when you combine both of those elements in one film, we’ve also seen plenty of that as well.
Director Jonathan Liebesman, who gave us both the limp ghost story Darkness Falls and the tedious slasher/torture remake-prequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning , is unable to do very much with this material other than copy better work by better directors: Battle: Los Angeles is deep down more of an urban war picture than an alien invasion thriller, with an aesthetic that recalls Black Hawk Down without the sense of tension and pacing (I almost thought of calling it a more self-consciously gritted-up version of Ridley Scott's film, but then I recalled the bad case of Teal & Orange that BLA suffers from, and concluded that it is a gritted-up version of nothing).
District 9 (2009)
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
influenced Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Visuals Characters Plot
Tall and gangly (think a combination of an old fashioned clothes pin and the “prawns” from ”District 9”) the aliens have no problem killing anything in their paths.
The invaders (mostly glimpsed at a distance) appear to be more aggressive relatives of the prawn-like interned extraterrestrials in "District 9." But there's no political satire in Christopher Bertolini's deadly serious, tin-eared recruiting poster of a script, which at one point has a fist-pumping Eckhart proclaim "Marines don't quit!" Eckhart's character has just been approved for a discharge when not-from-Mexico aliens begin landing off the beaches of Santa Monica.
No sooner do these words leave his piehole when aliens not related to Charlie Sheen, but flying saucers borrowed from the District 9 gang, begin attacking.
And that’s the problem the “Battle,” it’s a movie that wants to take from “Independence Day” and “District 9” and draw in both audiences.
Gangly ETs reminiscent of the "prawns" in District 9 have sacked LA and most of the world, so now Eckhart's Sergeant Nantz must lead a ragtag crew through the demolished streets of Santa Monica to extract surviving civilians.
It's " Independence Day ," and there's a " Black Hawk Down " in " District 9 "!
When he goes off on a five-minute tangent near the end of the second act, an over-the-top, would-be heartrending monologue about the duties of war and the tough decisions he's had to make, only to follow it up with the outrageous declaration, "But none of that matters right now," it is akin to a punchline from 1980's "Airplane!"
Michael Nantz, who — to paraphrase Lloyd Bridges in "Airplane!"
When the noble staff sergeant played by Eckhart has to face down the noble but ticked-off brother of the dead soldier (the ticked-off fellow is played by Cory Hardrict ), the speech Eckhart delivers is so sodden and treacly he sounds like Robert Stack droning on while nobody's listening at the end of " Airplane!
The Recipe: One part War of the Worlds, one part generic stoic army guy movie from 1957 set during WWII, one part Independence Day, one part goofy dialogue that makes it seem like the screenwriter watched Airplane!
The responsibility is far more than she bargained for, but one she is willing to fight for when the mysterious presence Victoria and Lily call "Mama" turns out not to be imaginary after all.Intentionally or not, "Mama" takes worthwhile inspiration from 2002's " The Ring ," 2003's " Darkness Falls ," and 2011's " Don't Be Afraid of the Dark " while cooking up its own gothic standalone fable.
That witty, ambitious, cleverly written fantasy was part Walt Disney's "Pinocchio," Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai," Walter Hill's "The Warriors" and part cautionary tale warning parents about the dangers of ignoring their children.
There was a time when the prospect of Peter Jackson making a movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit would have been cause for celebration—say, right after the final installment of Jackson’s wonderful Lord of the Rings trilogy swept the Oscars in 2004.
The general premise isn't new, either; while certainly effective, it is nearly identical to the one used in 2003's killer tooth fairy thriller " Darkness Falls ."
There’s also a more than passing resemblance to Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) in the film’s quirky camera shots, dark tone, and even several plot elements.
All the President's Men (1976)
Directed by Alan J. Pakula
influenced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Themes
Like All the President's Men, the film shows how a dogged reporter can make a difference, toppling deranged kingpins with a notepad (and a smartphone).
But the looks can’t match the story, a hodgepodge screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (“Wrath of the Titans”) and Will Beall (“Gangster Squad”), with story credit going to Geoff Johns, Wan and Beall.
The screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (“The Conjuring 2”), Will Beall (“Gangster Squad”) and others proverbially throws everything at the wall to see what sticks: childhood abandonment issues, action sequences from “Jason Bourne” and “Wrath of the Titans” films, “Star Wars” imagery and conflicts, Arthurian legend, “Thor” movie-like dialogue, creatures from the menu at Red Lobster.
Batman Begins (2005)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
influenced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Themes Plot
Is TMNT 's main inspiration Batman Begins ?
Borrowing heavily from the superhero origin story formula of films like The Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Begins , which sees dead humanitarian parent A eventually lead to chemical attack on the city B, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles moves at a nice clip once the turtles themselves are revealed, though to the detriment of the human lead.
The Toxic Avenger (1984)
Directed by Lloyd Kaufman
influenced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Themes
Initially assumed to belong to the schlocky ranks of spoof material like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or The Toxic Avenger , TMNT soon distinguished itself by being every bit as out-there as the premise demanded.
Whoopi Goldberg (2010's " For Colored Girls ") runs with a couple scenes as news chief Bernadette Thompson, but she deserved a final send-off to more satisfyingly tie up her side plot with April.
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
Directed by Russell Mulcahy
influenced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Liebesman and screenwriters Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec ( Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol ), and Evan Daugherty (uh, Divergent ) make the turtles themselves mostly likable while also hewing somewhat close to the origins, mercifully abandoning the earlier, Highlander II -esque idea of making the turtles aliens, but still retconning things in order to increase the stakes for O'Neil and Sachs.
The latest culprit inspiring this exhausted rant (after "Transformers," "The Smurfs," etc.) is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," a remarkably charmless revival of the comic book characters popularized by a late-'80s/mid-'90s animated series and two entertaining and one terrible live-action movies in the early '90s.
Unfortunately, it’s the same TMNT your father got, although this time in eye-gouging 3-D, thanks to toy-movie-maker and merchandising mogul Michael Bay of “Transformers” fame.
Instead of stepping behind the camera, as he has with every installment of the Transformers franchise, the Hollywood hitmaker has passed directing duties to one of his disciples, Jonathan Liebesman ( Battle Los Angeles , Wrath Of The Titans ).
As with "Transformers," what makes this movie tolerable is plenty of slick action sequences (the director is Jonathan Liebesman) and a decent human support cast (Will Arnett, East Meadow's William Fichtner, a brief Whoopi Goldberg).
Much slicker-looking but less endearing than its ’90s live-action predecessors, the film manifests all the usual attributes of a Bay production — chaotic action, crass side jokes, visual-effects overkill, Megan Fox — but is nowhere near “Transformers”-level off-putting.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the 2014 iteration of a franchise that has been a kids' staple for more than 25 years, is a close cousin to Transformers.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Directed by Wes Craven
influenced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Founded by Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form back in 2001, the studio seemed to exist solely to suck the life out of beloved horror properties such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
The most direct cinematic comparison would be the Clash of the Titans, both the original 1981 classic and the execrable 2010 remake and its languid sequel Wrath Of The Titans.
If "Thor" and "Stargate" and "Wrath of the Titans" got together and had a threesome, this would be the unholy spawn that would be birthed from it.
A treasure trove of gilded fantasy bric-a-brac and clashing accents, Proyas’ sword-and-sandals space opera is a head above the likes of Wrath Of The Titans , but it rapidly devolves into a tedious and repetitive succession of monster chases, booby traps, and temples that start to crumble at the last minute.
Instead of an unmitigated disaster of Wrath of the Titans proportions, what Proyas has painstakingly crafted here is an agreeably bonkers, lavishly decadent lark that delivers enough visual spectacle to offset its narrative absurdity and piss-poor casting choices.
But what resonates most in this coming of age story is not the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” bed sheets, or the Golden Era hip-hop songs punctuating each attempted ollie, but the uncomfortable -- and inescapably powerful -- truth that bad-influence kids you fall in with can sometimes do as much good in your formative years as harm.
One of the first things we see is a bed covered with “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” sheets, followed by shelves neatly lined with CDs and cassette tapes.