Battle: Los Angeles

The cinematically ubiquitous town of Los Angeles is a fascinating, geographically exciting city, but you wouldn't know it from the horribly uninteresting sci-fi catastrophe that is Battle: Los Angeles. Big-screen alien invasions can be energetically exciting and awesomely intimidating, but you wouldn't know it from this terrible movie. Scenes of soldiers dashing through streets and being pinned down by gunfire have the potential to provide gripping thrills in the midst of raw drama, but (you guessed it) you wouldn't know it from this mega mess. There really isn't much to be gleaned from this movie at all and the list of things one wouldn't know from it is staggering. I'm actually a bit surprised the movie even has a title, so devoid of anything original or worthwhile is this offensive assault.

There are so many potentially promising elements at work here that I remain flabbergasted by how infinitely, endlessly boring this movie is. Despite including a plot that pits nasty aliens against Marines in the midst of a metropolis (a premise that, while worn, fills me with giddy joy), Battle: Los Angeles is a massive failure from start to finish. Opening with green-tinted footage of a battle sequence that is meant to echo actual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the narrative quickly rewinds in order for us to meet a handful of dry, irritating, interchangeable characters who will soon guide us into the Los Angeles portion of an alien attack.

Led by the usually charismatic Aaron Eckhart, who looks like he's spying an exit from the soul-sucking banality that is this movie, the platoon of Marine soldiers are as bland and pitifully etched as can be. One character is jokingly insulted by a fellow solider buddy for taking part in the unmanly tradition of flower sniffing. Another is picked on by his buddies for being the youngest and most awkward of the bunch, to which he responds by vomiting up the beer he just drank (where's a laugh track when you need one?!). Yes, it's Masculine Mocking 101, where each character is defined by a clichéd sense of testosterone-fuelled duty before being tossed into battle and discovering that sweat and tears are sort of manly, too.

Macho stereotypes and lazy characterization are almost to be expected in a movie like this, though, so it's no surprise that screenwriter Christopher Bertolini takes such an easy and predictable path. It's still a bad approach, but at least it's not a deal-breaker yet. That happens soon after when each and every character is quickly boiled down to nothing more than military terminology and the ability to pull a trigger. Even with by-the-book characters stolen from a pile of previous war movie rubble, it doesn't take long for Bertolini and the entire cast to simply combine every character so that there isn't a memorable or unique one in the bunch. Even when Michelle Rodriguez (Hollywood's go-to woman for tough female roles) shows up as an Air Force soldier, she's basically reduced to being a man with less stubble.

At no point in Battle: Los Angeles does either side (the humans or the aliens) earn a shred of sympathy, which probably has something to do with the total lack of believable or memorable characters. At any point, the soldiers could be replaced with cardboard cut-outs and I doubt anyone would notice. Considering how lame the aliens are (point, shoot, repeat), I'm not so sure they'd notice, either. As interchangeable as the humans, the extraterrestrials look like oversized lentils placed on top of a fleshy set of arms and legs. The creature design isn't horrible, but everything else about these monsters is. The scrapheap ships they command to fly around are particularly uninspired and the alien race's weakness is about as imaginative a flaw as tube socks are a Christmas gift.

Without interesting heroes or villains to populate the narrative, Battle: Los Angeles has only its visuals to rely on, which isn't exactly unheard of in terms of alien-themed action flicks. What is unheard of is how the setting of Los Angeles and the millions of dollars (somewhere between 70 to 100 million, depending on who you talk to) spent on pyrotechnics and digital effects have resulted in something so unconscionably ugly. Okay, so expensive blockbuster movies looking like crap isn't an entirely alien (pun intended for purposes of silliness) concept to Hollywood, but it seems only fair to wish that a dopey, lunkheaded action flick about soldiers and aliens shooting each other could at least have a competently shot and edited action sequence.

Instead, we're treated to ludicrously unoriginal scenes of soldiers wandering through what appears to be the same stupid set over and over again (no wonder these guys take forever to get anywhere). When not wandering around in the midst of alien gunfire, the soldiers are protecting civilians and giving sap-infused advice to each other. The drama really bottoms out when Eckhart's "character" tells a scared child that he can be an honorary soldier and that the most important thing to understand is that "Marines don't quit." Here's where that laugh track could come in handy again. This particular moment is so ridiculous in its militaristic treacle that a chuckle seems like the only logical response.

Director Jonathon Liebesman has created an inexcusably awful sci-fi flick with Battle: Los Angeles, which seems to go out of its way to flaunt its horridness. Aliens and Marines battling each other could and really should be a blast. When James Cameron pitted the two against each other 25 years ago, the result was one of the greatest sci-fi/action hybrids of all time. When Liebesman tosses the two together, the result is this gag-worthy garbage. But that's not really a remotely fair comparison to begin with. Battle: Los Angeles is closer to a filmed version of kids playing with action figures than it is to Cameron's brilliantly brawny contribution to the Alien series.

In trying to make sense of how such a seemingly harmless blow 'em up flick can turn out to be so rotten (and stinky as a result), my mind keeps returning to the simplicity of the premise and the notion that there is genuine potential here. News flash! There's a battle in Los Angeles! With aliens! And lots of explosions! Unfortunately, watching the aliens go shoe shopping would arguably yield a more entertaining experience. But Liebesman doesn't care. To hell with good (or even watchable) filmmaking! Cue the pyrotechnics! Cue the generic action score! Cue the jingoistic nonsense that surely must be meant in jest! Then, finally, cue the end credits. Phew! Just in time to mercilessly prevent my brain from melting in protest. Oh well, at least I know the world is safe from alien attacks as long as Marine soldiers are nearby with big guns in hand. And did you hear that Marines don't quit? Hmm... perhaps I learned something after all.