Darkmatters Review: Battle Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles (12a)


Dir. Jonathan Liebesman

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

“Retreat?”


“Hell no!”

If there is one thing that Hollywood teaches us it’s that when tooled up alien invaders turn up and begin systematically wiping us out – the people you really want in your corner are U.S. Marines. Battle: Los Angeles is all about man vs aliens – told from the point of view of a bunch of Marines who risk everything to save some civilians trapped behind enemy lines.

Splashing impressive special effects, Battle: Los Angeles paints a pretty bleak picture as to earth’s capacity to repel invaders and packs in a huge amount of peril and threat for a 12a rated film. This is basically a cinematic hybrid version of two classic shoot-em-up PlayStation games namely Call of Duty crossed with Resistance: Fall of Man (look out for the massive billboard for Sony’s Resistance 3 which arrives later this year in one scene).

We join Staff Sgt. Michael Nantz (Aaron ‘Dark Knight’ Eckhat), a soldier whose last mission didn’t go so well, leading to most of his men getting killed. He is tasked with leadings a small team of Marines into the occupied area of Santa Monica – an area that has been devastated by the evil alien exterminators.

Think ‘Black Hawk Down’ just with angry armoured extra-terrestrials instead of Somali soldiers and you’ll have some idea of the non-stop against the odds action that makes up most of the screen time. The deafening interplay of large caliber guns being answered by the sonic booms of the advance alien weaponry is the constant backdrop to the macho goings on. Who, if anyone, will survive is the only variable factor as the team battle valiantly to save some cute civilian kids and token multicultural clichéd characters.

Battle: Los Angeles is a pure boys own movie – a fact backed up by my eldest son who turned to me as the end credits rolled and said “I could happily watch another two hours of that!” Don’t be expecting any real character development or deep exploration of meaningful issues – just sit back and enjoy the alien carnage and untold battle mayhem.

The effects team has created some of the best alien special effects to grace the screen since AVATAR (even though Colin and Greg Strause jumped ship midway to direct the lesser sci-fi work ‘Skyline’).

Battle: Los Angeles is loud, dumb and action packed, so if that’s what you’re in the mood for – step up and join the fight!
Out of a potential 5 you have to go with a Darkmatters:
öööö

(4 - Big bangs, little brains, Woo Haa)...

Awesomeness öööö – LA gets trashed in style
Laughs öö – unitentional laughs only
Horror ööö – some convincing death and destruction
Babes öö – Michelle Rodriguez looks good kick ass
Spiritual Enlightenment ööö – LA is worth fighting for!

- - -
Second opinion - try Sci-Fi-Cool who said: "“Battle: Los Angeles” is one hell of an alien invasion kick-off for 2011. For now, at least, it’s the film to beat."

Rodriguez looks good out of combat gear too"

Darkmatters Review: Skyline

Skyline (15)

Dirs. Colin Strause and Greg Strause (The brothers Strause)

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

“Our first encounter will be our last stand...”

Run for the hills – the alien invasion might just have begun and it looks pretty lovely. There are sparkling blue lights falling from the heavens all across the globe and surprisingly it isn’t even an advertising campaign for Sony’s Blu-Ray packing PS3, no, this is an Independence Day scale invasion of our little planet.

We join the action in Los Angeles where heroic Jarrod (Eric ‘that bloke from 24 who doesn’t make it’ Balfour) and his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie ‘hit US medic show Trauma’ Thompson) are visiting successful pal Terry (Donald ‘Scrubs’ Faison). Their partying is cut short when in the early hours following Terry’s lavish birthday bash ET and his pals gate crash our atmosphere.

Do the invaders (at least some of whom look a lot like the Sentinels from The Matrix) come in peace?

"Earth's last stand might not last that long!?"

In a word ‘no’ – these bad boys are here to harvest our brainstems and those lovely blue beams? They are clever devices which entrance anyone who looks at them and then sucks them up to the waiting spaceships to be processed.

Skyline was made on a very low budget but somehow the directors (working hard to make amends for their terrible crime against cinema Alien vs Predator: Requiem) deliver some tasty special effects. Alas the rest isn’t up to the visual look of the film, the budget limitations mean that for every impressive alien, the payoff is that we get to spend a lot of time in the same few locations.

So it’s best to just let the visually pleasing and highly destructive alien attacks wash over you. The whole concept is vaguely ‘Cloverfield’ like in that our main characters aren’t the heroes fighting back, these are just average Joes witnessing unprecedented events.

There are certainly some action scenes that will stay with you – pick of the bunch is an excellent fighter plane assault on one of the large alien craft in which you half expect to spot Will Smith leading the plucky squadron.

"Hmmm - seems you've been watching too much X-Factor"

But Skyline isn’t a feel good movie, and the bleakness of our human incapacity to oust the aliens certainly hasn’t gone down well in the US where they simply don’t like to lose to anyone. Maybe the very silly pre-sequel set up will see an upturn in the chances of human survival??

SEEN DELETED SCENE:

The cast of Indepence Day team up with those from Skyline to mount a bigger scale fight back... still doesn't work!!?

Darkmatters rating: ööööööö (7 alien ass kickings out of 10)

Darkmatters quick reference guide: Action 8 / Style 6 / Babes 6 / Comedy 4 / Horror 5 / Spiritual Enlightenment 2