RETREAT, HELL!

I went into the cinema apprehensive about Battle: Los Angeles. On the back of watching Skyline recently (*shudders*) I was looking forward to a good sci-fi, well, at least a sci-fi with some essence of a plot. And there, yes, at the beginning of the film, each character and there subsequent life story that will somehow relate to part of the narrative later on in the film began to unfold in front of my eyes! It was a necessary evil I suppose but it could have been done with a tad more subtlety. But still, right off the bat, one up on Skyline.

Also, by not spending any time developing the plot or any real sense of camaraderie in the beginning, the director gets to move hastily onto the good stuff. Namely this good stuff consists of numerous shoot-outs between the Marines and armour-clad aliens. In downtown LA. The film was sold to the financial backers on that premise alone. That was certainly what attracted me to the film; the rest of the plot was just pastry to the sugary awesomeness of the gun fights.

The basic premise of aliens invading the Earth to tap into our resources/ technology/ brains has been done before but Battlefield somehow manages to keep the whole thing, ahem, down to Earth. The alien warriors are somehow lifelike and their weaponry, whilst more powerful than the humans, isn’t ridiculously so. Yes you get the small band of merry men that somehow manage to save the world (whilst the rest of us feeble minded humans wait for our saviour America) but, somehow, it works. Except of course when you get to the glue that holds those battle sequences together.

This is where the weakness lies; Battle: Los Angeles tries to take itself a little too seriously at times.  The battle sequences are well choreographed, the CGI is certainly up to the task but the dialogue is somehow lacking. I know that in amongst all of the near-misses and carnage there needs to be a brief moment of reflection to allow the audience to catch their breath, but I couldn’t help but feel it was slightly hollow. This certainly isn’t because of bad acting- Aaron Eckhart is excellent as the discharged and haunted Staff Sergeant, but I feel he does his best with a script that teeters within the confines of cliché.

I can however forgive the minor ‘you-remind-me-of-your-brother’ moments as the battle sequences are awesome. Well directed, with tension and pace, Battle: LA is more Saving Private Ryan than Science Fiction. I’m sure if Mr Hanks read that he’d punch me square in the face but because the shoot-outs are shot so well, and the pace is kept to a maximum, you almost don’t feel as if you’re watching a sci-fi.

So, if you want a smart sci-fi with a sharp plot, characters with depth and dialogue with emotion and wit, watch Blade Runner. If you want a film that’s out to entertain, blow shit up, and (perhaps) recruit Marines, then Battle: Los Angeles is certainly worth a couple of hours of your life. No Spielberg obviously, but I was far from bored which, realistically, is all I was after.