Battle Los Angeles

We went to see Battle: Los Angeles this week. It's in 2D, so that saved us a few bucks. Also, even though it was tops at the box office, we still got there way earlier than we needed to. Whoops. Anyway, I got nearly all of the trailers (most of which were on our list) although Evan got Priest. The last time I threw a shut out, the movie turned out horrible, so we try and avoid that. The last time Evan got all of them was before The Last Airbender, so we know something's terribly wrong when he gets them all.

The movie opens during a helicopter ride full of marines, receiving instructions from their commanding officer as the chopper avoids anti-aircraft fire. Then it flashed back 24 hours to introduce all the members of the squad. Here's a Staff Sargeant, played by Aaron Eckhart. He's been in the marines for years (like, 20) and decides it's time to retire (after being passed on his run on the beach by a squad of much younger marines). This sets up a battle of the clichés, because the guy who's a few days from retirement almost always gets killed. However, he's never the main character. So I wondered if he'd get killed or not. Anyway, they also have the guy who's about to get married, and faking excitement about the planning to mollify his wife. There's the guy who busts everyone's balls. Here's the guy who has a joke for everyone. A new recruit, who everyone teases but also looks out for. Here's the guy whose brother was killed while serving under Eckhart's character (an interesting dynamic that gets played out). There's the guy who had some sort of psychological episode (PTSD?) and isn't cleared for combat by the doctor. Here's the guy from Nigeria, who joined the American Marines to be a doctor. Finally, here's the newly minted lieutenant, heavy on training but light on experience, saying good-bye to his very pregnant wife. There are more characters, but they don't get introductions because they come in halfway through, or they're just not that important.

They're initially about to be deployed to help with evacuation because asteroids will probably wreak some havoc on coastal cities, but by the time they report to the Forward Operating Base (FOB), they know they're up against aliens. The plan is bomb the snot out of Santa Monica, so they now need to get every civilian back to the FOB.

Their squad is tasked to get to a police station, grab the citizens that are holed up there, and get back. So off they go, into smoke filled streets, and then the action starts. The first part is a little confusing, because of the shaky-cam, and also because it's hard to tell who's who when they're all wearing the same coloured fatigues amid a smoke-filled battleground.

The team gets whittled down a little, but they make it to the police station, even offloading some of their wounded back to the FOB. Unfortunately, the aliens’ airforce makes an appearance, so they have to hoof it back on foot or by bus. Bus it is, with a few extra members from other teams that got wiped out and five civilians - a father and his son, and a woman with her two nieces.

The path back is blocked, and a few firefights ensue. It becomes obvious they won't get back to the FOB in time, so they get out of the bombing zone and hunker down. From there, the tension rises, as does the action. Fighting, moving, more fighting, more moving, much fighting ... it's all pretty good.

I really liked this movie. It was, for all intent and purposes, exciting. Maybe it was the shaky-cam combined with the excessive military jargon that seemed to put me into the moment. Maybe it was the acting. Maybe it was the writing and dialogue. Or a combination of everything. Whatever it was, I really liked it. It's been a while since I've left a movie feeling like that.

Of course, the music probably played a part. I had planned on acquiring it, but forgot until Evan emailed me the groove shark link, so I downloaded it, and added it to my list of things to buy. It's by Brian Tyler, whom I had never heard of before. Not that that's such a bad thing. I hadn't heard of Steve Jablonsky either, but he did both Transformers movie soundtracks, and they're amazing.

There are some flaws, but they seem less important than flaws in other movies. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because those things aren't given much importance in the movie. Anyway, one of them is that the aliens come to earth to steal our water. Apparently, they didn't see Europa on the way in. The second problem I found is that the ships look quite un-aerodynamic, but Evan made the great point later that perhaps the design facilitates intra-galactic travelling. The other point I actually got from Gregg Easterbrook, and is generally common to all alien movies. The chances of aliens coming to Earth being within a certain technological window of our evolution is incredibly small. The universe is 14 billion years old. A 1% increase in the rate of evolution would make them 140 million years more advanced than us. 140 million years of evolution would take them from just past single-celled organisms (the next step after amoebas) to humans. Homo Sapiens have only been around for 5 million years. The idea of anything alien being damaged by anything human is ... laughable.

Still, ignoring these (or shoving it into the bubble with all things covered by the Willing Suspension of Disbelief), there's a terrific movie in here. Highly recommended. Be aware, though, that's it's less Independence Day and more Black Hawk Down. Once the cast gets whittled down, it seems to be far easier to tell everyone apart, so that's nice. Definitely a theatre movie.