By Kyle Hintz, Staff Writer. Published April 1, 2011
Battle: Los Angeles is a terrible title. It seems terrible titles are a trend in Hollywood these days. This one foreshadows the disappointment that this movie will be to its patrons. Sadly, it actually starts out fairly decent. Staff Sgt. Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is preparing to retire, an incident in Afghanistan is eluded to in which he got several soldiers killed or something to that effect, several young gung ho soldiers are introduced in effective, if clichéd sequences, and this movie starts to show more promise than that of its alien invasion B-movie plot.
Then a series of meteors crash down in major cities all across the world. Aliens show up and nothing terribly original follows. Aaron Eckhart is the only saving grace of the movie, his unwavering respect and dedication for what he’s doing despite the quality of the material is inspiring and engaging. Unfortunately the movie around him is fairly routine and deeply patriotic. The action scenes are an incomprehensible mess of flashy editing and blaring sound effects which create confusion rather than excitement.
I’ve seen worse movies, but at least really bad movies are memorable while this just ends up beginning nothing to write home about. If you’re really dead set on seeing it, check it out, but don’t be surprised if Eckhart is your favorite part of the movie because he’s really the only good thing about it.
2 out of 4 paws!
