Quick review of Battle: Los Angeles.

• Posted by Jackofasses March 11, 2011 - Filed in General - 217 views

  Storyline: Your average aliens have come to take over our planet for it's resources story. When I say it's your average storyline, I mean it's your average storyline. If you've watched any other alien invaders movie such as Independance Day or War of The Worlds, you know how it starts and you already have an idea of how it will end. It also features the same key sappy moments every hollywood movie has, right down to the motivational speech to rally the troops.

   

  Character development: It's an action war movie, you already know alot of the people in the movie are gonna end up dead or severly injured half way into the movie. You also know that that means that you don't really need much character development. Show a few of the soldiers talking to girlfriends or hanging out with buddies on downtime and that's about all the character development you need. The main character isn't really developped much either, the usual war hero background about covers it.

   

  Action: My eyes hurt. I actually mean that in a good way. There were enough explosions and bright flashes and fire in this movie to make Michael Bay think that someone is compensating for having a tiny dick more than he is. The combat sequences are actually pretty good and there were a few unexpected suspense moments that actually had me twitch in my seat and got my heart racing. The suspense tends to die down about half way through the movie though and it happily goes back to being a standard alien war movie.

   

  Camera Work: People have said this movie looks like it was shot with a handheld camera but I think they missed the point. The Majority of the movie has standard fixed camera work and it's not all shakey and jittery. It's the same kind of camera work you see in other war movies/shows, similar to Band of Brothers. Where the camera DOES get shakey is mostly at the start of the movie when the camera is showing you a soldiers eye view. It works great at the start of the movie and then, much like the suspense and stuff dies down after we all finally see what we're dealing with as attackers, it fades away and is almost barely used after that point.

   

  Overall: If you want to see a sci-fi war movie that's kind of a mix of your standard alien invasion flick and great war movies like blackhawk down and stuff but don't really care much about substance and original content and endings then it's a great friday night flick, and a bluray I will be adding to my collection. If you're looking for an original story, interesting characters and are epileptic, then this probably isn't the flick for you.