Re: Battle: Los Angeles
Rehashed "Independence Day" and "Transformers" imo. Giant robot aliens try to take over the planet, Marines save the day. This movie was a let-down to me, too cliche for me to enjoy the film much. It had more value as a comedy than an action film to me.
First off, the whole 'Reality-TV' camera filmography is played out bad. After suffering through a decade of crap like MTV Road Rules, Jersey Shores, etc. I really cringe to see the whole Blair-Witch Project camera technique being used in box office films. The shaky camera crap leaves the audience chewing Dramamamine instead of popcorn.
Then there are the typical action film cliches. "The helicopter blows up." (nobody saw that one coming.) Alien picks up a bouncing grenade to examine it just before it explodes in his hands. Civilian picks up a weapon and gets shot trying to be a hero. <span style="font-weight: bold">The butch female AF pilot.</span> Is this the ONLY role that chick does? Wasn't she doing the same thing in "Avatar"? Call me crazy but is she the same actress that portrayed the pilot in "Aliens"?
Then you got the Hero-Soldier guy.
Hero-Soldier guy is all like 'I'm gonna go out on my own and save the day, and then everyone is gonna be like yah hi-five dude WTG!' Then when the chopper leaves I'm gonna stay behind to save the day again, and the team is gonna be all like 'yah we are gonna stay too,' (but not because the last chopper blew up on us.)
The dialogue was pretty bad in some parts. There was this intense scene they built up to in the movie, an exchange between the SSgt (hero-soldier guy) and Rufio from "Hook". Rufio's brother had been killed in Afgh. under the command of the SSgt (hero-soldier guy). After some action in the movie and resulting casualties they finally have a confrontation about it. The SSgt gives an emotional speech about the lives of the men lost under his command, but suddenly quips at the end of his speech "<span style="font-weight: bold">BUT NONE OF THAT IS IMPORTANT NOW.</span>"
I swear I laughed so hard in the theater when I heard that line, I don't know if the comic-relief was intentional or if they just had a terrible writer.
The alien autopsy scene...no comment. "Trust me, I'm a veterinarian."
Then the ending, imo a bite off of "BlackHawk Down" the tired soldiers get to their OP/FOB whatever, start sucking down water. The hero-soldier guy is all like 'I'm going back out. I'm a hard-ass minister of death praying for war. Gimme those empty mags, I need to reload them." (and the rest of the team is like 'yah we're gung-ho as fk too, wait where are the stripper clips?)
Bottom line, the movie has very little plot development, the exposition of the film is almost non-existant as it launches right into the story without even introducing the main body of characters until halfway through the film. The dialogue is pretty one-liner ish, "Welcome to Earth!" ala "Indepenence Day". Action sequences are throughout, a little difficult to follow due to the motion-sickness camera on a spring-loaded tripod effect, but entertaining enough. The back-details are sparse but they provide you with enough information to understand roughly what is going on. On a scale of 10 I'd give the movie a flat 5 for the action elements they got right, and penalized for the bad cinematography, mediocre acting, and excessive cliches in the film. Was it worth the money? If you like a good laugh, perhaps.