World Invasion: Battle LA
Power producer Neal Moritz' (Green Hornet, Fast & Furious) company is called Original Film, which is ironic because he hasn't made a truly unique motion picture in some time. His latest effort, Battle: Los Angeles, isn't groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination, but packs enough punch to leave you saying, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
Jonathan Liebesman (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) directs this massive movie about a race of aliens colonizing our planet, but as the title suggests, the action is centered on the City of Angels. Instead of watching the world at war, we witness the American military's last stand on the West Coast by following a single squad of soldiers on the ground as they fight their way through the city to pick up scattered civilians before the Air Force levels Los Angeles. 2nd Lt. William Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez) leads the troop but is too young to be calling the shots in a cataclysmic event like this. Thank heavens Squad Sgt. Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) was called back in for one last mission, because it doesn't take long for the rest of the battalion to realize that the reluctant hero is their best chance for survival.
It's a good thing that Liebesman and his technical crew are on the top of their game in Battle: LA because most of the other aspects of the production are just downright foolish. Writer Chris Bertolini took the framework from a handful of classic war movies and applied them to his script, resulting in highly predictable scenarios and a pace that marches to the beat of past genre entries like Independence Day and Black Hawk Down. His dialogue, filled with military jargon and 5th grade humor, is quite literally laughable at some points while the thinly crafted characters are all token "team members" that you've seen before in films like Jarhead, from the soon-to-be-father who's not sure if he's going to make it back to his wife to the new recruit/virgin who's too young to die to the guy with the chip on his shoulder. We get brief glimpses of their back-stories in the first twenty minutes of the movie, but as Nantz says during his Bill Pullman moment when the tide begins to turn, "none of that matters now."
What does matter is that Battle: Los Angeles is a roaring thrill ride that barely lets up from start to finish. From the moment the soldiers hit the streets they're thrust into a tense and gritty survival situation that vaguely mirrors the urban environments in which our Marines are currently engaged in the Middle East. Liebesman uses handheld cameras and close-ups to capture the calamity of combat, giving the picture a documentary quality that helps it find some semblance of individuality. Though his actors aren't required to do much acting (save for Michael Pena, whose small role as a dedicated father stands out) and the script, as stated, is noticeably sub-par, capturing their facial expressions as hovercrafts blow fighter jets out of the sky brings out emotion that most of them wouldn't be able convey in a more traditional performance.
As I continue to heap praise upon the film's technical achievements, I must also note editor Christian Wagner's chaotic cuts that heighten the soldier's state of paranoia and the overall sound design of the picture. Until we get up close and personal with one of the aliens, Liebesman doesn't show us much; we have a hard time seeing them because they move so fast, but we can hear their quick movements and the affect is quite unsettling, much like the performances from Michelle Rodriguez, Ne-Yo and a slew of the films co-stars.
Whether or not the filmmakers originally intended on making a movie that was more than the average alien invasion flick is neither here nor there. Is it a rehash of the most exciting moments in War of the Worlds or Red Dawn? Sure it is, but it's also an electrifying film that manages to be engrossing and entertaining in spite of its flaws.
Hollywood.com rated this movie 2 1/2 stars.