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You should have seen that coming for the Video of the Day. I mean that title says it all.....
Anyway. This is my blog. :)
This is the first (?) blog where I actually write about something that people actually use blogs for. Ranting, move/game reviewing, etc.....
The movie today is Battle: Los Angeles.
It's weird, when people ask me what my favorite movie is, and I say "Battle: Los Angeles" they give me a weird look. A lot of the time its because they've never heard of it.
Which saddens me. Yes, I would have to say its my favorite movie. Probably because I don't watch movies very often. And it combines all the things I like: War (entertainment wise, it know in reality its hell on earth), action, EXPLOSIONS (MICHAEL BAY!), and an alien invasion of Earth. And it's actually super realistic.
Excluding all the crap Hollywood will try to put into their movies, which this movie has some. Ok, so now here is the actual review! ***THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS****
PLOT/SYNOPSIS:
Battle: Los Angeles is a sci-fi thriller in which aliens surprisingly and swiftly, attack our coastal cities in en effort to drive us away from the ocean, so they can harvest our water. So far so good. Recently, I've read some alien invasion stories or whatever, and they never explain why they show up (COUGH* SKYLINE *COUGH). So I was impressed when they included a motive for their arrival. The story revolves a soon to be retired Marine Staff Sergeant, Michael Nantz, who just before retiring, gets thrust into service to evacuate civilians. He is joined by a battalion of Marines, each distinctive from each other. The down side is that they tried to characterize too many characters before the action started. They weren't well developed. And the dialogue could have been better. By the end of the movie, all the main characters are left, so their personalities have been developed some. This has been the biggest downfall for this movie according to critics; the lack of characterization. But honestly, this move is a WAR movie. Lots of fighting and guys being men. We didn't come to see the movie to watch characters develop. We came to watch America kick some alien ass. Which that definitely delivered.
The battle itself lasts 2+ days. 1st day we get utterly pwned. The 2nd day, our hero Staff Sergeant, and his squad wipes out the alien control center, severely crippling the alien war machine. The 2nd also shows a counter attack, as a quickly assembled army gets organized to take back Los Angeles. I didn't exactly like that about the movie. I kinda felt we won too fast. Independence day did this too. I don't see how a completely unknown, vastly advanced enemy could be taken down in a matter of days. I mean give me an alien invasion movie in which we don't totally own the aliens within 48 hours. Or, just make a series out of it (Which I really hope they do with Battle: LA), have each movie be a phase/battle in the war that should be lasting decades.
And also what I don't like is the American aspect of this. I know this is an American film, intended for Americans, but ALL the alien invasion movies I've seen take place in the US. Even War of the Worlds, which the original book took place in England. I don't have a big problem with this, but I wanna see variety. How did China deal with them? Germany? England? France (they obviously lose by default)? Japan? That would be cool to have a different perspective. Also, in the opening of the film, the general in the press conference says that 12 different locations around the globe were attacked. He also says that New York, Boston, San Fran, and San Diego have been attacked. Including Los Angeles, almost half of the alien force attack America. There's two sides to this coin. Any advanced alien species would obviously scout us out before attacking. And America, being the world's powerhouse, would probably be first on their list to wipe out. Which would make sense, militarily. But on the flip side, they have half of their force attacking America, and they are relying on the other half to attack the other 6 billion people on Earth. To me, that's terrible strategy. IF aliens were to attack, I think they would be smart enough to completely overwhelm us, and not just pick 12 spots to invade. And with those 12 spots they have to conquer us. Or at least push us far enough away to stop them from taking our water. The general in the opening says that this is a "textbook military invasion." That may be true, for the United States. For the world, not so much.
I was also kinda disappointed in the amount of aliens that attacked. You never see more than about 13 aliens at a time (which I'm ok with; excluding the news footage of the first attack), but I want to see LA totally bomb rushed by aliens. I really hope they weren't expecting to kill 6+ billion people with just thousands of soldiers.
In short, I love the plot. It's what I like. I think it's totally original, and I'm kinda jealous I didn't think of it first.
THE ALIENS
The aliens were pretty cool. I absolutely LOVE how Jonathan Liebsman (?) created them. My favorite aspect is their arrival, which is in the opening video. That clip has a ton of attention to detail. The crashed craft on the beach, the aerial shot of ground combat, and the meteor shower. I love how they came. The meteor entry craft is pretty sweet. The footage of the meteors falling above LA I think is phenomenal. I've watched that scene hundreds of times because it's so freaking awesome. They did fantastic with it.
The aliens themselves are pretty cool. I mean, they're your cliche alien (Something bipedal, that's not human) but they always seem to make a different alien in the movies. The Battle: LA alien is a really tall, squid looking humanoid, with an ovalish head, two feet, and pretty much humanoid in everything else.
In one scene, they dissect an alien. Which, again, I loved. You get a cool up close look at them, and from the extras I saw on DVD, they spent A LOT of time trying to perfect the alien subject. They were original, and had similar fighting styles to our soldiers (I.E, they duck, they hide behind cover, they work in squads). Different, but I thought it was cool they put that in.
What I dislike about the aliens, is their vehicles. To me, it looks like they had a prodigious amount of duck tape handy, and they got bored in a junkyard. The alien craft look like flying heaps of metal, it looks like crap and that it was made from a junkyard. I hated that. Super advanced aliens visit Earth, and pwn us with flying hunks of metal. I'm not saying they looked retarded, I'm saying it would be like if America went to the military bone yard, and put together an Army of WW2 Sherman Tanks and reinforced them with whatever spare junk they could find. That was the only problem I had with the aliens. I'll give Skyline credit, the ONLY thing they did better than Battle: LA were the aliens. Skyline offered your classic alien warships and stuff. Battle: LA didn't, but delivered on everything else.
Well, it's 3:11 right now and I'm tired.
I'll finish the review in future blog posts!
Tell me what ya think about it, or about the movie in general. I thought it was great! Chow!
Ian Quote Of The Day: "Hasn't the History Channel taught you anything? War is freaking awesome!"
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