Battle: Los Angeles

[Mark CMG]

I saw this yesterday and was surprised by the turnout at the theater. Many more attendees than I might normally see at an early show. The script was thin in some areas which I think made some of the acting come off as wooden but this was otherwise a pretty good war flick with the added bonus of not having a real-world-based enemy. It's all about archetypes and the usual plot points but well executed, IMO. There definitely are some advantages to seeing this film on the big screen rather than DVD on a television. It's not a must-see but I don't think someone who likes sci-fi or action films will be disappointed at a matinee price.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And, just to be clear, it is NOT the same film as the one on Sy-Fy as I post.

And neither incorporates any music from the classic RatM album, unfortunately.

 

[Banshee16]

I saw it last night and it was pretty decent. I wasn't watching it for acting, but the acting could have been worse. Definitely worth watching. In some ways Battle: LA is what Independence Day should has been, and is a far superior movie (IMO).

Banshee

 

[SuperJebba]

Banshee, you're crazy! Independence Day is still THE alien invasion movie, but Battle: LA was still an awesome movie. Definitely worth the $82 they charge for a ticket to the cinema these days.

 

[Banshee16]

I guess my tastes have changed...I used to love ID4....however, it's just a little campy, and I like more grit than I used to. I *will* admit that the scenes of large aireal battles between F/A-18 squadrons and alien fighters were pretty cool. Because Battle: LA takes place from the POV of a marine squadron on the ground, instead of a pilot, you don't really see the aireal battles.

But there's a bunch of stuff from ID4 I could do without.....the whole "destroying the alien mothership by having a drunk crop duster fly his plane straight up into it", or the computer virus aspect, and just the overall campiness.

Not saying I *disliked* ID4. I don't. It's just now that I've seen Battle: LA, it's more "my thing" I guess.

Hopefully it does well. It was pretty cool.

Banshee

 

[Hand of Evil]

Best review I read was on Twitter, that called it "Call of Duty, with bad cut scenes".

I enjoyed and also was surprised at the turnout, showning was packed. Action was very good, actting not bad, FX was so-so.

 

[Stumblewyk]

I was happy with it. I went to see it Saturday at noon, and it was just me, and 3 other guys, all of us alone. But I live in a really small town that's just lucky to have it's own movie theater. Frankly, I don't know how they keep themselves afloat in this town, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway - I liked it. Like Banshee16, I prefer it over Independence Day. ID was great in it's day, but now it just comes across as over-the-top and bloated to me. I prefer the grittier, smaller scale of Battle Los Angeles.

 

[Banshee16]

The one thing I noticed at the end is that it got applause from the audience. I don't see that very often. It was a pretty packed theatre, so it was interesting to hear that.

So, high art, it wasn't. A fun movie, I thought so. My wife thought it was far too violent, but the rest of our group loved it.

Banshee

 

[Mark CMG]

The one thing I noticed at the end is that it got applause from the audience.

One person of the two dozen in our theater tried to get that started, too, and pretty obviously. I thought it was weird at the time but just forgot about it as a worked up audience member. I wonder if there was some sort of twitter campaign to pull that off?

 

[Krug]

I thought it was pretty terrible. Filled with cliches and one-dimensional characters; it might have saved itself with some decent action sequences, but they were so confusing, with little sense of spatial relationship. The aliens weren't even consistent; one scene

Spoiler

the squad is doing surgery on something that looks like a combination of lumps, btu the aliens look like a bunch of mechanical stick figures with toasters on them.