“Battle: Los Angeles” is a sci-fi action movie that tells the story of a global alien invasion that also sees the city of Los Angeles under attack. As alien spaceships decimate the city, the U.S. Marines are called in to the rescue. We then follow one group of marines, led by Aaron Eckhart, as they take to the streets as our first, and last, line of defense against the nasty E.T.’s.
The premise, while uninspired, still sounds cool, right? Marines throwing down with space aliens, explosions, machine guns, tanks, helicopters, ect; “Independence Day” meets “Black Hawk Down” as some Hollywood director probably pitched it as to the Columbia Pictures studio executives. Still, it’s not what a movie is about; it’s how it goes about it, therefore it still sounds pretty badass, right? I can at least expect to see some awesome visuals…right?
Well, “Battle: LA” is the cinematic equivalent of one of those pictures that you stare at for seconds at a time waiting to see the real image hidden inside. Except, this movie is 2 hours, and I never got to see the damn image! I merely just stared at the screen, dumbfounded, trying to figure out who was who, where they were, and what was happening. Watching this movie is like staring at French Impressionism; I see swashes of paint, but I am left to come to my own interpretation of what exactly I am looking at.
The reason for this disorientation is because the camera operation in this movie is downright awful. It shakes, it zooms, it whip pans, and it constantly seems like the operators are rolling film while standing on hot plates. This style of filmmaking has been called “shaky cam” by some, “queasy cam” by others. We’ve all seen plenty of action films & TV shows use this style; at it’s best, it does create a gritty, visceral documentary realism that can be quite involving (‘24”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Black Hawk Down”, ect.) At it’s worst, it is impossible to get any sense of what is happening; instead I just stare at the screen, absorbing pieces of incoherent images while the rest feel as though I am watching a movie while sitting in the back of a semi truck going down the side of a very bumpy mountain, while also spinning around in a circle.
Thankfully there are lines like “hey look! Our planes! It looks like we’re still in the fight” to give me some indication of what’s going on. To be fair to the movie, despite the flimsy character development and the simplistic (and, at times, laughably bad) dialogue, there might’ve been at least a pretty cool action movie here. There is nothing wrong with a mindless action film, especially if the action sequences are involving. However, the incredibly bad camera work here acted like a barrier, constantly pushing me out of the movie when I just wanted to see the cool explosions I was hearing (at least, I think those were supposed to be explosions.)
Movie Theater Experience
I saw “Battle: Los Angeles” on Friday, March 11th, at the Regal Theater in Eagan. I had a voucher to see this movie, but it was only good at select theaters (this being one of the 2 near my apartment, for some reason.) Anyway, the experience was pleasant, despite the very chatty girl sitting behind me who was constantly asking her friend what was going on. Thankfully, the movie was loud enough to drown her out most of the time. However, it was fun sitting behind a guy that was super into the movie (and quite vocal about it.) Whenever something would blow up he would clap and cheer. This is the kind of audience participation that I DO like; as much I sat there frustratingly trying to enjoy the movie, it was cool to hear that someone else was, indeed, enjoying it.
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