Battle: Los Angeles by Jonathan Liebesman
Ugh, you have to trust Hollywood to take a halfway decent concept (here it’s a “realistic” military reaction to an alien invasion) and screw it up, this is pure blockbuster schlock. First thing that hits me, the camera never stops shaking! It doesn’t just shake in dramatic scenes and in the action scenes, but all the time! And I swear, there’s one action scene where the shaking is so exaggerated that it becomes comical! I’ve never seen a film overuse this gimmick so much, when it’s well used it can be effective, but here its definitively not. It just looks like Liebesman is trying to compensate for a lack of directing skill. The shaky cam plus the very rapid editing makes it almost impossible to see if a shot is well filmed, framed or if the composition is interesting, as a result I can’t really picture a single good looking frame in my head.
And they sure don’t stick with the “realistic” aspect for very long. The first time the platoon is attacked, well, it’s a pretty effective and realistic scene, but afterward it just becomes typical Hollywood-ish action scenes, with people jumping away from explosions and shooting with the precision of a video game player. And I get that they find the aliens weak spot at one time, but damn those things really went from indestructible to needing just a few bullets to die.
I think the second worst aspect of the movie, after the directing, is the clichés. Battle: Los Angeles accumulates the clichés like it thought it was a good thing. For starter, all the characters are nothing but stereotype, you have ; Micheal Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) who wants to retire and who feels guilty for losing a few men on his last mission, a guy who lost his brother on the same mission and of course blames Nantz, an inexperienced youngster, a slightly mentally unstable marine who really wants to get back on the field, two best buddies (one who’s getting married), a cocky, but goodhearted dude, a though chick and a bunch of kids. And finally, the lieutenant who question his decisions, acts a bit lost and finally start getting his shit together after a talk with Nantz. But its not just the characters, you have some guy who sacrifice himself by blowing up with enemies, some “dramatic” death scenes, “dramatic” speeches, more speeches, cheesy melodrama, a confrontation between the guy who blames Nantz for the death of his brother and Nantz, etc.
At least I don’t feel angry about spending 10$ to see this, because me and my friends were making fun of the movie non-stop with bad puns and inappropriate jokes - after some laundry detergent falls on a marine : “Well, at least with know that this is a… clean war!” - a dying dude is asking Nantz to promise he’ll take care of his son : imitating Eckhart’s dubbed voice “No promises on the battle field”! (he said that line much earlier in a different context) - after the father of some kid dies : “Now that you’re father is dead, you have to be a man, here take this gun!”. You know, this kind of stupid humor. There was very few people watching the movie, they didn’t seem to mind us or at least nobody told us to keep quiet or to shut up, but we were the only one laughing.
It’s a pretty bad film, despite its interesting premise it’s very formulaic with textbook Hollywood action and melodrama and it takes itself far too seriously. An awful blockbuster, I feel bad for giving my money to a film like this, should have watched Rango instead. Oh, and Michelle Rodriguez is underused (yeah, I like her).
