"Battle: LA" Movie Review
3/14/2011 Posted by Admin
Movie Review
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, Written by Christopher Bertolini, 116 minutes, PG-13.
By our guest blogger, Matthew Schimkowitz
If the recent slew of apocalyptic invasion pictures teaches us one thing, it's that they make better trailers than movies.
The bleakest example of this, "Battle: LA," is also among the most disappointing. This loud, jingoistic picture starts strong but quickly slows as the film grows more epic than personal. The film’s hardened marines, cliché speeches, and crazed camera work would make for a great video game and probably already has. That said, less can be said for its cinematic qualities.
Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), a decorated but dishonored Staff Sargent who is just one day away from retirement, gets called into duty when a group of robotic, colonizing aliens invade Earth's major cities. However, his team--which includes the brother of one of the fallen soldiers from Nantz’s final, controversial campaign--remains skeptical of their leader's skills. Attempting to hold his squad together, Nantz leads them across the decimated Los Angeles cityscape to the alien control center with hopes of ending the invasion.
"Battle: LA" starts with its best foot forward. Eckhart, the disgraced and tortured Sergeant, takes the reins and leads the film on a character-focused war movie. The doubt of Nantz and his squad makes their fear real, as they wander the city’s abandoned interiors. It’s maddening in the best way possible, if only because it takes its subject seriously.
However, this changes as soon as director Jonathan Liebesman's manic handheld camera work takes over. The tight framing and the camera’s whirlwind movements disorient the viewer and disserve the scope of Liebesman’s vision. As he tries and to get back to the characters in Act III, his cast grows and becomes a vehicle for big guns and bigger explosions.
The more epic Bertolini makes his script, the further we get from the heart of the story. Nantz and his company search out new ways to blow things up, when they should be searching for some humanity. They approach each mission with heart, but end in a cold display of violence. In the end, Liebesman never finds the characters, and "Battle: LA" becomes the mindless shooter it shouldn't be.
The trailer may look like "Black Hawk Down" with aliens, but the result is more like a mini-game in “Call of Duty” that loses its luster after a few minutes of gameplay.
Grade: C+
March 19, 2011 at 9:05 PM
duuuuuuuuuuumb, first off, they find humanity at the police station, which was they're main objective. then they have to flee out of the air force bomb range. at not one point during the first half of the movie should they be looking for humanity. after they find the FOB to be desolate they proceed on to getting rescued by other marines returning to the second base camp. on the way they find what looks to be the command central. so obviously it's not a question that they go try and destroy it. maybe you should watch the movie with common sense, rather than thinking what you would do, because I'm sure you're not a marine.
March 20, 2011 at 1:26 PM
You must be retarded because this movie was awesome. It had constant action and a great storyline. It showed the brotherhood of marines even though they were going against a seemingly invincible force. This was the best movie I've seen thus far this year. America has been in the absence of an awesome war movie since Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down. You may argue that The Hurt Locker was a great war movie, but in reality it didn't have much action and it just basically showed his life as a bomb disarmer. THL was good, don't get me wrong, but this movie showed war in a totally different aspect. It kept me at the edge of my seat the whole time and Nantz was a great character to fill the lead role. So I disagree with your opinion, and I don't think that you did justice on this movie. It deserved much more praise.
March 20, 2011 at 1:27 PM
You must be retarded because this movie was awesome. It had constant action and a great storyline. It showed the brotherhood of marines even though they were going against a seemingly invincible force. This was the best movie I've seen thus far this year. America has been in the absence of an awesome war movie since Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down. You may argue that The Hurt Locker was a great war movie, but in reality it didn't have much action and it just basically showed his life as a bomb disarmer. THL was good, don't get me wrong, but this movie showed war in a totally different aspect. It kept me at the edge of my seat the whole time and Nantz was a great character to fill the lead role. So I disagree with your opinion, and I don't think that you did justice on this movie. It deserved much more praise.
March 20, 2011 at 6:42 PM
I dont completely disagree with what you said as in many ways it is true but i think this was a good movie and good fight scenes ect.. The only problem i had was they won at the end (if they make a sequel it will most likely be bad) and also some really sad speaches. But you are over exaurating minor bad details. What about the acting and animation and how good these fight scenes were.
April 2, 2011 at 12:38 AM
I couldn't agree more. This genre needs to be put to bed for a very long rest. Why is it that we long for aliens to always destroy us? I guess we need something else to blame for the destruction of the world because like always we pass the buck on responsibility instead of looking at ourselves.