Monday's Movie Review: Battle LA

Our Rating ** (2.5 Stars)

Last week I had the good fortune to go out to the movies with a good buddy.
We both needed to get out of the house and see a MAN MOVIE that neither of our wives would ever choose to watch willingly.

So off to the movie theatre we go, eager to watch a good mix of aliens, guns and explosions. We were not disappointed, this movie had a dynamic mix of all of these, sometimes at the expense of other bits, like a cohesive storyline, but hey there are cool aliens so all is not lost.

This movie is definitely one for the sci-fi / war movie lover. For those used to simple rom-coms this kind of thing is probably not going to be for you. If you like a bit of action then this will keep you entertained, but in a predictable Hollywood formula kind of way. There is nothing particularly special about the plot, everything transpires much as you would expect. The film is given a war correspondent style of treatment in the shooting style, which imparts quite a gritty and realistic feel. This actually adds a lot to the film as it makes the whole thing feel more real, especially in the heavy action scenes.

The plot of the film revolves around the rapid arrival into the atmosphere of a series of mysterious objects thought to be meteorites, which ultimately crash into Earth's oceans near several major cities including Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, New Orleans,Mexico City,New York, Hong Kong, London, Paris, Barcelona, Hamburg, Sydney. These objects are revealed to be spacecraft containing hostile alien forces. The U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton arrive in Los Angeles to defend against alien ground forces and assist in the evacuation of civilians in preparation for a bombing campaign. This of course all turns pear shaped and a confrontation ensues. Cue the explosions!

The official website < http://www.battlela.com/ > (copy & paste people) is a great companion piece of marketing, complete with an impressive selection of downloadable wallpapers, backgrounds for twitter, additional movie clips and a very slick online game that I took one look at and closed immediately for fear of addiction!

Overall I thought the film was completely watchable, but nothing spectacular, and definitely not memorable or one that I would be rushing out to buy for the library at home. The characters are not especially engaging or endearing, even though there is a plot thread that involves the rescue and subsequent "protecting the safety thereof" angle with a defenseless family with cute young kids. The whole thing kind of lumbers along with no real edge of the seat moments.

Some additional info from that old chestnut Wikipedia:

Critical response

Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 34% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 174 reviews, with an average score of 4.8/10. The website reported the critical consensus, "Overlong and overly burdened with war movie clichés, Battle: Los Angeles will entertain only the most ardent action junkies". The Rotten Tomatoes "Audience" rating stands at 57%; the "Top Critics" section stands at 21%. Review aggregator Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 37 (out of 100) based on 35 reviews from mainstream critics, considered to be "Generally unfavorable reviews".

Roger Ebert panned Battle: Los Angeles in a lengthy review, calling the movie "noisy, violent, ugly and stupid", giving the film a mere half star rating. Though he praised Aaron Eckhart's performance, Ebert heavily criticised the film's writing, effects designs, camerawork and editing. He closed his review by saying, "When I think of the elegant construction of something like Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, I want to rend the hair from my head and weep bitter tears of despair. Generations of filmmakers devoted their lives to perfecting techniques that a director like Jonathan Liebesman is either ignorant of, or indifferent to. Yet he is given millions of dollars to produce this assault on the attention span of a generation."

Battle: Los Angeles was given poor reviews by the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly,and Variety. Kim Newman of Empire rated the film 2 stars out of 5 and criticized its lack of originality. Nigel Floyd of Time Out rated the film 2 stars saying that it "... lumbers the flat military characters with hackneyed dialogue and corny sentimentality".

Neil Smith of Total Film magazine rated the film as 3 stars out of 5 and summarized, "Imagine Black Hawk Down with ET's instead of Somalis and you'll have the measure of an explosive if functional actioner that will do while we're waiting for summer's big guns to arrive". Both the Radio Times and the Chicago Tribune also rated the film 3 out of 5. IGN rated the film 3 out of 5, stating that the film has spectacular visuals and intense action packed scenes.

Box office

Battle: Los Angeles debuted in 3,417 theaters, grossing $13,399,310 on its opening day, which was currently the best opening-day gross for 2011. Overall the film made $35,573,187 and ranked #1 on its opening weekend ahead of Red Riding Hood and Mars Needs Moms. The film dropped to #2 after a week when Rango topped the box office on St. Patrick Day. As of April 5, 2011, the film has grossed $79,133,914 in the United States and Canadian markets and $96,135,168 in international markets, for a worldwide total of $ $198,148,000