There's probably not a huge overlap between action movie enthusiasts and Los Angeles wonks, but however small the demo, it's going to be half-disappointed by "Battle: Los Angeles," out at midnight tonight. After attending a press screening, we can relay the following: In the movie, Los Angeles is the site of humanity's last stand against aliens who are colonizing Earth because they want our liquid water, and there are no indications that that's supposed to be ironic. "Battle" was filmed in Louisiana, where tax incentives were offered, freeways were shut down for filming, and palm trees were brought in for verisimilitude, but palm trees didn't earn this movie the right to put "Los Angeles" right there in the title. Neither did scoring the calm before the invasion with (no joke) Tupac's "California Love," or lighting a handful of CGI fires on top of a wide-shot of the basin. "Battle" doesn't even deliver on destroying fake SoCal--when we're promised that the military is going to blow up all of Santa Monica west of Lincoln, we want to see the military blow up all of Santa Monica west of Lincoln (it doesn't). There are some explosions, though, and people who just like to watch shit get blown up and see US Marines in shoot-outs with robot-looking aliens whose weapons technology seems to have advanced only slightly beyond our own will have a pretty fun time at this movie. But don't go to "Battle: Los Angeles" expecting to see craftsman bungalows or character development or one of the Watts Towers flying through the Randy's Donuts donut like a harpoon.
· Battle: Los Angeles Archives [Curbed LA]
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