Post by StevePulaski on Mar 28, 2011 19:46:25 GMT -5
Meteors fall in Battle: Los Angeles.
Rating: ★½
Battle: Los Angeles (don't forget the colon) is a shaky mess that is overly loud and pretty much obnoxious as it consumes the screen for a droning two hours. Remember the 2009 box office success District 9? That movie only cost $30 million to make. This cost $70 million to make. Of course, this has about three times as many explosions as D9, but D9 was a far more entertaining film. Just proves tamer setting but a more in-depth storyline makes for a more enjoyable time at the movies.
Aaron Eckhart is the film's strongest point. He plays SSgt. Michael Nantz, a man planning to retire from the military, but is sucked back in when he and his crew must defend the city of LA from meteor-like object that just crashed on every major city near an ocean. The aliens that come out of the meteors, or junkyard robots with what appear to be legs and arms, are now invading Earth.
The film doesn't even tell us why they come to this planet. They tell us they MIGHT want our water. But what does that have to do with the fact they just blew the living s--- out of the major cities? Couldn't they land their ship over the sea, collect a hell of a lot of water, and leave. Why must they destroy half the world to accomplish this?
The sound is overly loud. At first, I thought it was the theater I was in. But everyone that saw the movie that I know of complained about the audio being threw the roof. Not to mention, the on-screen actions are just barbaric. Half the time, you're lost in the countless number of explosions and the rip-roaring vibrations of the speakers. I like explosions. I don't like too many, and I don't like them to be ear piercing.
This is the type of action movie that relies on too many explosions than the quality of the plot. Some will say "well, just enjoy the film. Don't think to hard." It's hard to enjoy something that is utterly tedious and annoying.
Storyline wise, like I said, the film gives you about half of what it should. We don't get into these guy's private lives as much as we should, and we are just thrown in a helicopter with these guys with the sound cranked up to the maximum.
Time for the special effects. Without a doubt, the film is visually decent. The explosions, the first few at least, are entertaining and well done. The aliens are ridiculous. Take a look at the CGI used in District 9. Top notch and a full reason to use the animation. But in a bad film like Battle: Los Angeles, CGI is only used so-so. The effects on the ships are pretty good, but the alien effects (when we get the slightest view of them) looks mediocre.
I liked going along with the military on their mission to attack these aliens. But why couldn't we see a pretty even ratio of aliens:military? In District 9, we saw a good amount of both. It was entertaining to get both perspectives. We know in that movie why they've come. In this film, we get a hypothesis which isn't even told to be true or not. We must ASSume.
I know I continue to put it on the scale with District 9, but they're not too far apart. I expected, no, I wanted Battle: LA to be like a District 9 adventure film. I was disappointed and had lost interest forty-five minutes in.
Battle: Los Angeles plays like the popular game franchises Call of Duty and Halo. That's what it should've been. A video game. Tell me when you watch this that it couldn't be broken up into missions. Maybe the chaos could've been handled better on a PS3 or an Xbox 360. Not on the big screen.
It's a shame this movie didn't come close to what it could've been. But the lack of character development, explosive sound, poorly used CGI, and a chaotic mess on screen left me not only bored, but just waiting for this film to come to a close.
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Ramón Rodríguez, Bridget Moynahan, Ne-Yo, and Michael Peña. Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman.