Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
When once distant UFOs become a terrifying threat and an alien invasion force begins attacking Earths major costal and riverside cities, a U.S Marine staff sergeant and his team are sent into battle only to find they must take it upon themselves to defeat an unknown enemy and protect what remains of Los Angeles.
4 connections found
View:
4 films that influenced Battle: Los Angeles
What critics say influenced Battle: Los Angeles
“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.
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).
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!