Battle Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles

Dropps 5/10
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Running Time: 1 hour 56 minutes
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Screenplay: Chris Bertolini

Battle: Los Angeles is an action-packed, semi-realistic interpretation of U.S. Marines fighting invading alien forces. Well, not really. It’s true that Battle: Los Angeles offers action, but that seems to be the only positive element of merit in Jonathan Liebesman’s directorial debut.

Battle: Los Angeles centers on a platoon of Marines trying to reach a group of civilians before Los Angeles is leveled to the ground by the Air Force. The street-by-street fighting seems authentic enough and provides a high level of action throughout the course of the film. Unfortunately, while that feeling was great at the start of Battle: Los Angeles, it becomes tedious and annoying around the 90-minute mark of non-stop action. The problem is that without any breaks for us to catch our breath, we can’t be surprised anymore, and the non-stop action starts to plateau into nonsense. Furthermore, without the contrasting down-time there is no occasion to develop any of the characters, which is something of which Battle: Los Angeles is in dire need.

The entire platoon of soldiers is somewhat faceless and disposable, and in the midst of the firefights when the audience sees someone go down, there is no real emotional attachment. This is especially evidenced when the main character, Sgt. Nantz (played by Aaron Eckhart), never becomes endearing to the audience; simply, if the audience doesn’t care about the action hero in an action movie, those two hours will go by very slowly. That being said, Aaron Eckhart does an alright job to not fall into most invincible action hero clichés (“alright” in that his most remembered dialogue from the film will be the scene were he consoles a child by telling him to “…be his little Marine”). However, it is hard to fault Eckhart alone because the scripted dialogue in general was poor, sappy, or non-existent; in the majority of the film there are shells exploding loud enough to drown out all words. The shaky-cam elements aren’t for everyone but are consistent with the “actual events occurring” theme that Liebesman tried to produce.

All in all, Battle: Los Angeles fails where other great alien invasion movies succeed, as far as investing characterization goes. Better examples in the genre are Independence Day and District 9, the latter of which made a much larger statement than “aliens and humans will not get along.” If you are a fan of Michael Bay films, or war documentaries that place you in the middle of the action (sans actually caring or meeting the soldiers) then you might like this film. If not, keep your fingers crossed that the upcoming Super 8 will be good.

-Mat Karako