Alien invasion! Send in the military! Shoot out! Blam blam blam! Aliens die! The end. If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in alien invasion movies since forever, it’s the predictable storyline – which is fine, because I’ve come to accept not to expect anything more. Plus I believe that it’s possible to reuse an overdone story and still make a good movie out of it. It’s all in the delivery – and Battle: Los Angeles fails to deliver.
The last alien movie that I actually remember truly enjoying was District 9 and that was two years ago and since then I’ve yet to find an alien movie that surpasses its standards. Anyway, Battle: LA is about aliens invading LA and killing everybody in sight. The military is sent in to rescue some survivors, before the Air Force bombs the shit out of the area.
Aaron Eckhart plays the about-to-be-retired-but-sent-back-into-battle Sergeant Michael Nantz, who is part of a squad of horribly overused, clichéd and stereotypical soldiers. Along the way they meet Technical Sergeant Elena Santos (Michelle Rodriguez) who joins the party because everyone else in her team died. There’s nothing terrible about anybody’s acting here – just nothing special either. The big named stars could’ve been easily replaced with lesser known actors of the same caliber and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.
If you like watching movies for eye candy, I guess you’re in for a treat. The special effects in the movie are pretty good, nothing cheesy or bad here, the aliens, weapons and ships all look pretty good. But if you want some semblance of a decent plot line or perhaps a twist or two, you’re out of luck. To me, Battle: LA feels like a typical adaptation of a video game turned into a movie – it’s rarely done right and you’d rather be playing the game instead. And since the Battle: LA game was inspired by the movie, we’re stuck in a conundrum here. Anyway, Battle: LA gets 4/10.