When it's over, this film could have easily been renamed, "The Brotherhood," since its characters constantly revisit the importance of loyalty and camaraderie among their marine platoon. Battle Los Angeles consists of three stories rolled into one. First, the main story is about the fight to reclaim Los Angeles from alien invaders; second, it's about saving and delivering civilians to safety; and third, it's about the sacred bond shared between soldiers. The film managed to deliver on both two and three, but failed to make the primary storyline original or compelling or suspenseful. With 60% of the film focused on flying bullets, explosions, and destruction, there wasn't much room for story development. Yes, aliens have landed around the world and are taking over the city of angels, and that storyline is fine, but to make it work, the audience needs to know more about the aliens (where they come from, their language, etc) than just that the weakness on their body lies opposite to where a human heart would be or that they have decided to colonize earth for its H20 supply. Perhaps showing how they harness the earth's water would have been a step towards story development, because this would have shown the power of the alien's technology. In addition, the aliens were downright boring to look at, and there wasn't anything unique about them, like acid for blood in the Alien series or invisibility in the Predator series. This film tried to capture the feel of Independence Day, but missed the mark big time.
My rating: 2 out of 5
UUgghh! I can't believe I paid to go see this movie. There's no story at all, just a lot of shooting. Aliens came, earth almost got wiped out, main characters figured out how to take them, and that's about it. Did the writers go on strike while in the process of writing the script? Story was poorly thought out.
ReplyDeleteThe way movies are being made these days, it feels like the writers are on a permanent strike. There isn't too many original stories anymore, just a lot of remakes, adaptations, and prequels & sequels. There's a lot of razzle dazzle to stimulate the senses, but nothing to stimulate the mind. Too bad.
ReplyDelete