Movie Tour: Battle Los Angeles

I spent the end of last week in Knoxville with my wife while she was at a conference.  I took the opportunity to go see a movie that she wouldn’t want to see: Battle Los Angeles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plot Summary

The plot for Battle Los Angeles is fairly simple.  What is originally thought to be meteors crash down in the ocean near large cities around the world, and shortly after, an invading alien army walks onto the shore to colonize the Earth.  As with any colonization for natural resources (which is pointed out in the movie), it begins by eliminating the native population.  The aliens start shooting at people and blowing things up from the second they step foot out of the water.  Battle LA follows a small group of soldiers who are ordered to evacuate Santa Monica before the Air Force levels the place.  At least, that’s Plan A.

Review

I’ll be the first to admit that when I first saw the previews, I was really, really excited about seeing this movie.  It was my kind of movie – lots of action, alien invasion, explosions, some suspense, etc.  Then I started seeing the reviews come in, and they were less than stellar.  Some were comparing it to Skyline (which I’ve yet to see), others were saying that it “wasn’t as good as District 9,” which, you may remember, was my favorite movie from 2009.  I was a little hesitant to see it, but I decided to see it anyway.  After all, I’m certain that I’ve seen much, much worse movies in the theater before.  I’m glad I did.  The District 9 comparisons are unfair because the only thing that connects the two movies is the fact that aliens are involved, and there’s things that blow up.  Seriously, that’s it.  Battle Los Angeles is enjoyable.  It is a no frills action movie that is engaging from the beginning to the end.  There is some attempt to give you an idea of who the characters are at the beginning, but that doesn’t matter all that much when it all plays out.

Recommendation

If you want to see a movie that has great character development, an earth-shattering plot line and unpredictable twists… go see something else.  If you want to see a movie that has one-dimensional characters, lots of action and gives you an opportunity to shut it down for a couple of hours, go see Battle Los Angeles.  I really enjoyed it, but I wasn’t looking for an Oscar-worthy movie.

Best Part

The resolution of the movie is the best part.  As you can imagine, a few of the characters don’t make it to the end (I’m not going to tell you who, that’ll just spoil the fun), but the ones that do are galvanized together, and ready to do what is necessary to protect the land and fight back the invaders.