Battle:Los Angeles 7/10!

Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day with a little bit of District 9 thrown in. That's exactly what it is. This film was incredibly derivative of those titles. BUT, thats not really such a bad thing. I liked all of these films, and I enjoyed this mashup of the three. Blackhawk Down is one of the few movies I have ever seen that really created a sense of tension in me. It makes me feel like my blood pressure is rising. It's a very tense film. Battle: Los Angeles establishes that same sort of tension in me. It is a very visceral movie, filmed almost exclusive with hand held cameras, and artificially produced news footage. Those of you that get motion sick should probably avoid it however. Because it appears to be almost entirely shot with hand cameras it very shakey, like Cloverfield, or Blair witch project. I myself got a little nauseous during it, just do to the way the camera shook. Thats not a criticism of the film, its just a style choice, just a warning to those that might have trouble with this type of film. I knew several people who had that issue with Cloverfield and Blair Witch, and this one is more action oriented, and more likely to cause a problem in that regard.

This movie doesn't really bring anything knew to the table, pretty standard military drama except for the aliens. It is fairly well acted, Aaron Eckhert is always someone I enjoy, and the rest of the cast was at least competent. The one person I don't understand is Michelle Rodriguez. She routinely gets cast in films, and I really don't think she brings anything to the table. The movies she are in are good sometimes despite her, not because of her. The movie does, however, introduce some interesting concepts about the aliens, but they are really only mentioned in passing. They really show the aliens as a faceless enemy. They are pretty scary though, mostly because their weapons are incendiary based rather than ballistic. It's pretty scary when all the injuries are burns, probably do to our inborn fear of fire as a people.

All in all, this film doesn't really bring anything original or new to the table. However, it was still pretty enjoyable, and if your in the mood for a gritty war movie with a science fiction twist I would say go see this. Just take your motion sickness medication.