Review: Battle: Los Angeles

A clichéd script and a half-baked plot make this one alien invasion you can afford to miss.

Busy getting torn a new arsehole by critics across the board, Battle: LA is an alien-invasion flick which looked pretty promising up until its release. A marriage between gritty combat from the soldier’s perspective and an alien invasion not unlike War of the Worlds, it looked to have serious potential, at least as a concept. But as we all know, when sci-fi/action films go wrong, it can have cringe-worthy (and occasionally hilarious) consequences.

The story follows Marine Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), a veteran who has just taken his retirement when the extra-terrestrial shit hits the Californian fan. It’s all over the news; meteor showers are fast approaching, conveniently landing off the coastlines of major cities including Los Angeles, obviously. Out comes E.T. and his buddies, and instead of phoning home like nice aliens, they start shooting people in the face. Nantz is pulled back into action, and his squad of marines are sent in to rescue a group of trapped civilians before the whole area of Santa Monica is bombed flat by the Air Force to stop the aliens in their tracks.

So far so good, I thought. I forgave the worn out characterisation as we meet each member of the squad and what they have to lose (one has a pregnant wife, one’s about to get married, one has just retired and one is still a virgin, etc.) as well as the almost laughable dialogue as Nantz hands in his papers, and salutes the Star-Spangled Banner with a look of awe and pride on his face. After all, just because a film has its tongue firmly in its cheek doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining, and when the squad sets off into alien-controlled territory it looked like we were set for some tense Black Hawk Down-esque action with more shaky hand-cam than you can wave a camera at.

I was wrong. The action is ok to start with, but stagnates as the same scenario plays out again and again, and is undermined by an overbearing and clichéd soundtrack that almost seems to mock what’s happening on-screen. The aliens themselves are poorly designed and scarcely detailed, with little attempt to flesh them out with any semblance of a back story. Even their spaceships looked like they’ve been covered in space-glue and rolled around an intergalactic dump. Given their apparently superior technology and great numbers, at some points they seem to have no concept of fighting from cover; strolling around freely whilst the marines mow them down shouting ‘hoo-rah’. Sure, they’re presented as worthy adversaries in some cases, but only when it suits the plot and you’ll be as frustrated as I was when they make tactical decisions that make as much sense as a levitating crumpet.

Eckhart’s Nantz and stranded air-person Elena Santos (Michelle Rodriguez) probably give the best performances of the film. Eckhart suffers from one-too-many impassioned speeches (“MARINES NEVER QUIT!!”) whilst Rodriguez doesn’t do anything particularly wrong, besides signing up for the film in the first place. The rest of the cast (including Ne-Yo for anyone that cares) neither shine nor stink profoundly, and Jonathan Liebesman’s direction is much the same, it’s all just morbidly average. Much of the camerawork is handheld, which lends a realism that seems ridiculously at odds with the rest of the film. Throughout, there is relentless patriotism and marine arse-kissing that makes the film seem like recruitment propaganda, which would be all well and good if the film did a better job of what it actually set out to do. Instead, it just gets annoying. Everything considered, Battle: LA could have been something great. A bad script, mediocre story and forgettable performances will leave you feeling disappointed, even if you get a few laughs along the way.