'Battle: Los Angeles' Not Worth Defending

While the new science-fiction flick Battle: Los Angeles won at the box office over the weekend with an estimated $36 million in ticket sales, the movie is, in short, a disaster unto itself.

So squarely focused on its Marine Corps protagonists, the movie seems to be all battle and barely any Los Angeles, which is only seen in a few CGI glimpses of a burning skyline as a setting. This is a cheap excuse for a disaster epic, a movie that cuts all kind of corners while never sparing the grenades, shell casings and clichés.

If Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight, Rabbit Hole) didn’t grace this mess with his hyper-masculine presence and save it a bit by hamming it up as a John Wayne-style staff sergeant, this movie might seem like the cheapest, lamest excuse for sci-fi this year if it weren’t for flimsier projects like Skyline or I Am Number Four.

Don’t get me wrong, Battle: Lost Angeles is flimsy to the point of ridiculousness. Who knew so much battle could be so tedious. Instead of being something original, or even a rip-off of its disaster-movie betters like Cloverfield (2008), War of the Worlds (2005) or Independence Day (1996). Instead, it feels like an unwelcomed mesh of Blackhawk Down (2001) and Starship Troopers (1997), with enemies stolen from the alien ghetto of District 9 and relocated onto the beaches of Santa Monica, CA.

As soon as the aliens hit the beachhead, raining down in a hail of “meteors,” the Marines start gunning for them and vice versa.

Most of this is like watching a video game, starring Eckhart and involving hordes of aliens fighting through the debris that used to be Santa Monica. There’s really not too much more to Battle than watching his square-chinned Staff Sgt. Michael Nantz move from checkpoint to checkpoint, picking up some civilians and a tough-chick intel officer (Michelle Rodriguez, who else?) all the while fending off some very well-armed alien invaders.

These invaders have apparently destroyed three-quarters of L.A.’s population (off-screen) within about 10 minutes, but a small contingent of courageous Marines under Nantz can get the job done, hoorah! Making up for their small numbers with spunk and an impossible amount of ammunition.

Though set against an epic but oddly lifeless CGI invasion, the story--if you can call it that--barely tries to hold up the action onscreen.  Yes, there are some familiar story-substitutes here, the protagonist’s prerequisite emotional baggage (accidentally getting some of his men killed in Afghanistan), one character getting married and the other with a pregnant wife. By the end, these characters blur together so completely that you’ll be glad Nantz’ troops are so incredibly multicultural, as race is often the only way to tell characters apart as Battle kicks into high gear and never lets up.

A lot hinges on a small but important simple problem. Battle never bothers to enter Los Angeles proper, instead opting for the smoldering ruins of a super-nondescript Santa Monica. This seems a bit like setting a movie called Battle: Chicago in Skokie. Maybe this worked a bit in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, but with it’s atrocious writing and dull skirmishes Battle: Los Angles makes War of the Worlds seem like the Citizen Kane of alien invasion dramas.

Setting an epic alien invasion/disaster movie in a suburb isn’t an altogether terrible concept but really, what’s the fun of watching a city fall apart from the fringes? Where’s the spaceship zapping Grumman’s Chinese Theater? Why no alien invasion of Beverly Hills? And how in the hell is it that a movie called Battle: Los Angeles never once shows a destroyed Hollywood sign. With all this CGI special effects couldn’t they at least have fun with it?

The cost of producing the Sony release by director Jonathan Liebesman and writer Christopher Bertolini was put at $150 million. In debuting No. 1 at the box office, it beat out Rango ($23 million) and Red Riding Hood ($14 million), according to Box Office Mojo. 

I’ve certainly seen Army recruiting ads (and certainly video games) that were better done. After the initial and all-too brief period of getting acquainted with the alien invaders, there’s really not too much to keep anyone’s attention. From there, it's just one tedious semiautomatic versus laser shootout after another.

Eckhart popping in occasionally to help a civilian or an oddly disturbing autopsy scene shouldn’t count as furthering the narrative. But, heck, it might appeal to some people.

This is a pale shadow of the H.G. Wells concept, tailor-fit for the war-obsessed generation of Call of Duty. I don't like to make it a habit to reference video games in film reviews, but Battle has forced my hand. If you don’t like or understand the appeal of shooting-based video games, there's a fair chance is you won’t like Battle, unless of course you are overtly fond of seeing Californian cities destroyed. If that previous reference was for you, then please, kindred geek, don’t waste your time on Battle: Los Angels when there are two-dozen-odd video games that do it better. 

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