Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Its not war. It survival.
A new Predator movie comes out this weekend, and I’m excited about it. Unfortunately for my review life, I already have done all those movies - including the crossovers with Alien. Including the newest animated one. Heck, I even did that Mortal Kombat meets Predator with Nic Cage in it, so what I’m saying is I kinda don’t have a whole lot left that i can really directly tie into my excitement for that movie, so I instead opted for soldiers versus aliens, which is going to just have to be close enough alright? Trip down to Cali where the surf just brought in a tide of extraterrestrial foes - this is Battle: Los Angeles.
This movie does one of those things where it starts with some soldiers getting deployed in, only to cut back and build up some of their backstory to try and get you more attached to them. I’m not a huge fan of that play if I’m being honest - I’ve already sat down for the movie, you don’t have to try and keep me there with action just to backtrack - but that’s getting a little off topic. Our soldier boys find themselves in a science miracle that happens to be an alien invasion, and are tasked with getting to some civilians in a police station and getting them out of there before some bombs are dropped to effectively wipe out the ground-touching space grunts from the area at the cost of some infrastructure. Timer is set, team is deployed, but it isn’t long before contact happens and starts messing with the plan and their numbers. Battle through the streets of LA against an alien menace, and take bets on whose going to make it out alive.
Actors do a pretty good job here. I mean, sure, it doesn’t really feel like they have an absolute charcuterie board of things to do with their acting at face level, but they do manage to get a fair amount in there. The backstory bit really kind of just puts you with each soldier in the main crew for a little bit to get a feel for them - a few of the moments do build some decent chemistry between them that manages to get kept up throughout even the action segments - but most the acting comes in the post invasion segments where bullets and missiles and stuff are flying about. It doesn’t largely spend too much time on any specific moment - the movie moves brisk - and the most heavy emotional segments will come from our lead character over the others, but plenty of little spots flip in and out and let it feel like these actors are doing some good work at making the characters feel like actual people instead of some total cardboard cut out.
The characters could really be cardboard at times though. It’s not horrible really, given the number of them, but I don’t really think there is necessarily enough there that you will super crazily feel for the characters. You might get slightly sad if one dies, but it’s not going to be earth shattering for you I don’t feel. The main character probably gets to build the most attachment, since he’s the one that we spend the most time with. As a unit, they all play together well, largely looking slightly different enough that you can tell them apart - like oh, that guy has the mustache and that one has the glasses - even though they are still quite military uniform. The aliens just get to be alien bad guys. They don’t really talk, they don’t have arcs, we don’t get any solid logic - it’s pretty much “the news says they are invading because they want our water” and that’s about it, but it’s also fine. It works for the plot - remember, we are settled in with the soldiers of Earth over here, there story is what we are following so it just helps the evil menace stay this bizarre and not sympathetic thing.
Rought ride
Settings are a whole lot of outdoors. For the most part it might not seem like a bunch on paper, given it’s a modern setting that looks believable in most instances. It does still provide for plenty of variety though within that urban sprawl - and additions like destroyed buildings and cars, serious smoke or fog, and the mix of explosions and the like help keep things being relatively fresh visually without being too same-same. The brisk pace probably helps with that to some point, given that you never spend too long in a given space hunkered down. Costumes are good, but it’s also standard military looking gear and weapons, so it doesn’t really stand out to you as awesome costume design like you might get in a science fiction or fantasy movie. The aliens I feel like would belong more in the effects department, but I do think there may have been at least one practical alien even though I don’t think it was a costume as much as a prop.
The aliens do look, mostly good though. There’s a slight amount of variety with them, with some “leadership” like ones, and some flying drone things that get introduced later on. The tech and stuff is neat and suitably alien, although it’s also kind of not really addressed about their weaponry at all. It looks like it might just be bullets flying out - certainly at least once it’s a whole pack of what appears to be missiles - but considering the amount of burns people keep getting when getting hit I’m not entirely sure. That said, there some folks that get hit and don’t seem to burn at all from it, so I don’t know if some have different weapons or the movie just can’t decide what kind of damage they do. Most the combat and carnage effects look pretty good as well, with explosions always being fun. The weakest part of the effects is probably some of the more wide shots where it shows city destruction, as it doesn’t always look as polished (the typical “not master quality for the far away stuff” kind of situation). There might be some odd sight lines in there for a few moments as well, but you get that quite often with CG stuff and it was never so bad that it pulled me out of it unless i pause on it or something. Overall not a lot of complaints from me when it comes to the effects of this action blockbuster style flick.
Audio was there, and outside of a few songs the music felt really subdued. It’s not really a bad thing, and could just be my usual fault of forgetting the music as soon as it’s over, but outside of a few quieter orchestral sort of bits here and there and those opening “look, it’s California!” song choices I don’t recall it at all. Gun fire and other effects work sounds pretty good, and balancing is done well so you aren’t fighting to hear what folks are saying. Line deliveries are largely fine as well, complete with some emotion in them that makes for some nice little details - it really doesn’t feel like folks are slouching or calling it in for the movie. When it comes to the thinking man, well, i might have some bad news here for you. I’m pretty sure a person who wants to can milk a message out of anything, but here it doesn’t really feel like it’s preaching much of anything. You could probably garner some stuff about loss and grief, maybe even some extent PTSD elements or brotherhood, but I really don’t feel like this one was ever trying to tell me about the drastic inequality of the working class amongst intercontinental peers or anything close to that. It really felt like it wanted me to just maintain that popcorn flick level of brain investment, extending enough to potentially root for the soldiers while keeping it somewhat more grounded than a lot of alien invasion movies tend to do.
Rubber ducky
I’d say this is a good flick. Heck, at this point it’s probably the fifth or so time I’ve watched this since it’s release. I actually just bought today, because quite frankly if i seem to keep coming back that often when it’s stream-able or on television, I might as well just own it you know? So yeah, I enjoy the movie enough to buy it. The story isn’t anything crazy, the characters aren’t going to be floating in your head all week, but it is an entertaining and fun action flick about a bunch of Marines doing what Marines do. Yeah, it happens against aliens this time, and they totally have less numbers at the end than at the start, but you just keep on trucking because someone has got to and it’s what you signed up for. If that doesn’t feel like a hoorah, I don’t know what does.