Battle: Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles

(M) Sony DVD/BD

Another day, another invasion by aliens. Remarkably, considering how many times our planet (the USA, in particular) has been attacked by extraterrestrials at the movies, we still aren’t prepared.

Less than a year after fizzer Skyline had Los Angeles being belted from above, Battle: Los Angeles shows the same city overwhelmed again by interstellar armies.

Floundering in the gritty wreckage of a bombarded metropolis, a career soldier (Aaron Eckhart) leads a platoon of marines into the onslaught’s epicentre to rescue civilians.

Their military training and weaponry steadily struggle against the magnitude of the outer-space offensive.

You probably missed seeing Battle: Los Angeles at cinemas because it swiftly became a piñata mercilessly beaten by critics the world over. Such vehement vitriol wasn’t entirely warranted, though, as this attempt at a blockbuster mash-up of Independence Day and Black Hawk Down features undeniably amazing sequences of colossal warfare.

Fatally, though, the human element keeps letting the side down. In a big, boring and bland way.

Filmed in the handheld, fly-on-the-wall style of shaky-cam Cloverfield, Battle: Los Angeles is rife with character clichés, predictable developments and schmaltzy speeches.

Had audience members been able to stop groaning and moaning about the silly humans scrambling to muster any defence against enormous opposition, this loud yet lame campaign might have enlisted more recruits.

Ben McEachen

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