BATTLE LOS ANGELES (Jonathan Liebesman). 116 minutes. Opens Friday (March 11). See listings. Rating: NNN
Battle Los Angeles opens in the middle of a global alien invasion, with a load of Marines taking a moment to register the obliteration of downtown Los Angeles before throwing themselves into enemy territory.
It’s a great way to start, but the picture doesn’t have the stones to follow through on the promise of a truly unconventional sci-fi flick. Director Jonathan Liebesman quickly turns back the clock so we can spend 20 minutes watching the characters lay out their prefab baggage before the aliens arrive. Wouldn’t it be great if a movie like this just hit the ground running?
That’d be a much more daring proposition. Ultimately, this is an alien-invasion blockbuster designed for those people who wondered why Steven Spielberg’s War Of The Worlds was all flight and no fight.
To redress that perceived failing, screenwriter Christopher Bertolini cribs his structure from another Spielberg picture, Saving Private Ryan, following a single platoon of soldiers on a rescue mission through enemy territory. But where Spielberg’s film works as a commentary on war-movie clichés, Battle Los Angeles merely recycles them.
It’s all forward momentum, except when it pauses to let Aaron Eckhart’s world-weary staff sergeant deliver a generic motivational speech. And even that moment is comfortably familiar, simultaneously superficial and satisfying, just like the John Wayne pictures this movie’s audience has never seen.
