Battle Los Angeles (2011- 116 mins) A. Eckhart, M. Rodriguez

Battle LA is a movie about an alien invasion of earth. Think of “Skyline” without all the suckage. It’s a pretty grand invasion with surprise on the alien’s side and strength in numbers and technology. On our side we have a bunch of seemingly inept marines. All except all American marine Sgt. Nantz (Eckhart). He’s been through thick and thin in his tours of duty and a bit of a checkered past. But one thing is for sure, he’s a natural leader who knows his stuff about battle and is cool under pressure. The movie isn’t centered around the whole war and how to defeat the aliens on a grand scale. Instead, we get focused on one small group of marines and their objective of getting a group of civilians to the forward operating base from inside the war zone. I think it’s this scaling down of the war which helps keep the action a bit more frantic. The director also goes for the hand held cam views to keep us on our toes and viewing as if we were in the fight with the company.

By no means is this a perfect movie and no means is the writing of the whole invasion perfect either. Yet, I thought it was good none the less. It keeps you on your toes, and on the edge of your seat. It gets us to like the company and to want to follow Nantz into battle ourselves. Sure it’s also a bit long but it’s a glorified war movie with a TON of ups and downs and that’s kinda how they go. So don’t rent this unless you are aware its about its 2 hour run time. It’s meant in part to be a “realistic” take on alien invasions, including the surprise involved and also the response and chaos that would ensue. And for it’s part it captures this pretty well, but it then goes away from trying to show the realism and goes more into a war story capacity. Again it’s a good movie in my opinion but there still will be plenty of people who will poo-poo the movie as unrealistic, or choppy or silly. To them I say, well, it’s a movie about an alien invasion told from a marine’s point of view so you get what’s advertised.

Verdict–> A shaky, up and down alien invasion war movie. It’s got some heart deep down but it’s more of a “Saving Private Ryan” meets “Close Encounters”. Running with camera shots and a lot of bullets and bodies blown up. But a good escapist movie none the less. If you like your sci-fi with no thinking involved and a lot of things blowing up, then this is the movie for you. If you are turned off by 2 hour alien war movies then turn the other way. I liked it though. A good recommendation if you fit into those parameters, so get it to make the guy happy you just forced to watch that chick flick.

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