Battle: Los Angeles
Oh, aliens again? DOMINIC KEEN has seen all this before…
Directed by Jonathan Liebsman
[rating:3/5]
The look of Battle: Los Angeles closely mirrors the brilliant District 9, with photorealistic shots of alien spacecraft relocated to the sun-drenched backdrop of LA. Once again extra-terrestrial life has visited Earth, but here all similarities end, as within a quarter of an hour any potential for the socio-political musings of Neil Blomkamp’s indie-alien flic are bulldozed by a storm of bullets and epileptic camerawork.
The film is a mish-mash of recycled movies and worn clichés: Strange meteors land on the west coast of America (who really cares about the rest of the world?) + aliens rise from said meteors to inflict pain (War of the Worlds) + “We are being colonised” (Independence Day alarm bells ringing) + stomach churning amount of shaky-cam (Cloverfield) + the day Aaron Eckhart resigns from his twenty year service on the marines (any cop film ever) = ? Perhaps more fun than you’d think.
As the group of marines make their way across the burning landscape, a surprisingly strong emotional momentum starts to build despite the clichés. Various recognisable misfits appear feature: the bitter soldier mourning the death of his brother, the hot female civilian, a female soldier who earns her stripes, all under the command of the haggard Eckhart, who instils later scenes with a welcome -verging on absurd -sense of pathos. Their company never becomes annoying, except for the film’s incessant restating of the marine tradition of ‘never giving up’, although there is not time or space for this amidst the maelstrom of bullets and debris anyway.
Given the sheer number of films Battle: LA “owes a debt to”, it seems incredible that Sony saw fit to sue the Strauss brothers, who worked on the superb visual effects of the film. In the intervening period between post-production and completion, the brothers created and directed their own alien invasion movie Skyline, which Sony deemed plagiaristic of Battle LA, on a fraction of the budget.
Skyline was met with mixed reviews, but signals, along with Gareth Edwards’ Monsters, completed on a shoestring at half a million dollars, a new and exciting path for visual effect artists to pursue as film-makers proper; independently funded experiments created privately by experts, without the restriction of studio domination.
Hopefully this creative freedom will inspire more original independent output in the sci-fi genre, and also force the big name studios out of rehash mode and forward into quality film investment. For now, though, it seems the success of the War of Independence LA formula, big budget – big names – big profit, means we are stuck with good actors selling their souls while we receive a 90 minute sensual clobber-fest.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWPkJD0YHeM