Battle: Los Angeles

MOVIE REVIEW: Battle: Los Angeles
MOVIE INFO

• PRODUCER:
• DIRECTOR:  Jonathan Liebesman
• PRIMARY ACTORS:  Aaron Eckart, Michelle Rodrigues

INTRO STUFF

• Cleaned the car, car surprise (strange noises), more website stuff, class starts tomorrow
• Back to work, Homefront...(letdown)

SYNOPSIS

• In a world, where fearsome aliens make a grab for Earth’s resources, one man leads his squad of marines into the very heart of the enemy

WALKING IN F&T (FEARS & THOUGHTS)

• Before talking...Skyline.  Reviews I saw so far were low, Mike said it was like Saving Private Ryan meets Cloverfield so I was hopeful
• Big, Loud, no real plot to get in the way of the story...

FIRST ACT

• Flying in the chopper
• Minus 24 hours
  • We get to know the characters
  • Golf parties, marriage planning, saying goodbye to pregnant wife, etc
  • This flashback style was often used in BIG episodes of the X-Files (and many other shows)
  • Something about them being in the helos on their way reminded me of the start of the Normandy sequence of Saving Private Ryan

LATER SCENES

• Training - the truck pulls up
• New Captain (fresh out of training)
  • Transformers 2...
  • Butter Bars, this whole thing reeks of about a thousand other movies...
• Back to beginning of First act in the chopper
• Deployed through the neighborhoods
  • The dog, then the aliens attack...amazing, they didn’t hold back
  • Many dead civillans...made me angry...
  • Stuck in the house
  • Lost one guy - typical distractions (dryer buzzer, etc)
  • Kill one - drop a grenade, let’s go
  • “Just make a decision, right or wrong...”
• The police station
  • Gut an alien
  • Why didn’t the people respond to the marines...might not have heard them, but really?
• The bus ride
  • The small alien ships had tons of jet type engines to keep hover, pretty cool - and they would attach together to form a larger ship, very cool design like the cool (car) Voltron...
  • Loved the sounds throughout the entire movie - amazing
  • We get to see another alien gun - shoots like 20 little missiles Whole alien arsenal came from Transformers...
• Safe from bombing zone
  • They’re watching the clock on the wall down to the seconds when the bombs are going to drop?  Really?  
  • They thought B-52s were going to last against those things..really?
  • The father tells the story of his son, “he thought we could talk to them.”  I love that they made this point, because you can’t just talk to people who want to kill you, they don’t care, they want you dead.  They would use diplomacy to kill you if they had to...not aliens of course, today’s enemies.
• Move to base
  • Confrontation with the brother
  • Get in a cool tanker (LAV) and blast through the enemy to get to a chopper - was expecting a special gun not just a normal turret
• Recon mission
  • They get into the sewer, pass the area, gun fight, floating radio tower revealed
  • what do you think the little electro-towers were in the water?  Power generators since they were using our water to power their devices?
• Battle Radio Tower
  • A hand full of Marines were able to hold off everyone now when the aliens were able to take an entire military base?  (they knew where to shoot???)
  • Loved the two person destroy everything vehicle they sent after them, those aliens were going to town
• Back to base
  • They are safe, and all decide to go back to war together.  I figured that the girl would have been ordered back to her commander since she wasn’t a Marine, but things might have been in a little disarray...
  • This was toally BlackHawk down

QUESTIONS

• Part 2?

THE MACGUFFIN

• The alien’s power converter - uses water (our planet is rare in that regard, they would have traveled quite a while)
• Possibly the method to kill the aliens

CLOSING THOUGHTS

• CHARLES: 4.5
  • POSITIVES: Non stop amazing fun all of the way through, great acting, great message, left you with hope, want to see number 2, which I’m sure will be out soon
  • NEGATIVES: It didn’t seem believable for the Marines to still doubt the Commander after all he had done so far.
• MIKE 4.5
  • POSITIVES:  Bams and Booms aplenty...another grunts eye view story (remake of War of the Worlds, Cloverfield)
  • NEGATIVES:  Camera work was a little much (too far both ways), and there is no way that an NCOIC has to justify anything to his marines...