Battle: Los Angeles

I got my first glimpse of Battle: Los Angeles weeks before it's release. That simple 30 second tease had me hooked. I looked at my wife and said, "We have to see that movie."

 The Super Bowl trailer that had me hooked.

A week before it's release, Amazon was giving away a ticket to see Battle: Los Angeles with the purchase of a qualifying Blu-Ray movie. We bought Casino Royal and District 9; two movies we wanted anyway.

The day Battle: Los Angeles was released, I opened my Firefox browser and hit my usual web sites. At a few of them, I was met with great disappointment. Words such as "terrible", "boring", "unimaginative", and "laughably bad", were being thrown around to describe this alien invasion flick. I don't listen to critics much, but when I fail to find a single positive review about a movie, it raises a lot of red flags.

Then I came across a review written by a friend of mine, The Prententious Filmaker, John Boggs. I wouldn't say it was ravingly positive, but it did remind me of my post, Critical View. Besides, I already had tickets. So, Melissa and I found a sitter for Caspian and made plans to enjoy ourselves.

Readers, do not listen to the critics. This film was amazing.

Now, amazing has many interpretations. Schindler's List is amazing. The Empire Strikes Back is amazing. Die Hard is amazing. The Phantom Menace is amazing(ly bad). All of these films are amazing for many different reasons. Schindler's List is powerful. The Empire Strikes Back is a marvel in special effects. Die Hard is the man movie that all others are judged by. The Phantom Menace should never have existed. Four different levels of amazing, but amazing all the same.

Look back about 15 years. Can you remember the alien movie that reinvigorated our desire to see aliens getting shot by bad-ass humans? That's right, Independence Day. You know what my one complaint with that film was back then (and still is today)? The character development. Now, this is going to sound weird coming from the guy who wishes Link was developed a little more in The Legend of Zelda, but just bare with me. I honestly did not care one bit that The Fresh Prince was marrying a stripper and that Dr. Ian Malcolm had previous marriage blunders. I wanted to see lots of aliens getting punched in the face, lots of aliens getting blown up, and lots of aliens killing morons who wanted to be taken "home". There was plenty of that, but I was left wanting more.

 Two hours of this is what you can expect from Battle: LA

Battle: Los Angeles is the alien punching, alien blowing up, expendable character killing awesomeness that I was looking for. There may be 10 minutes of boring character development in the whole two hour ordeal. I could have even done without that, as it added absolutely nothing to the story. The remaining 110 minutes was face smashing, ship wrecking, building toppling, alien shooting awesome. Plot and character development have their place. John McClain wouldn't have been motivate to take out Hans Gruber if not for the love for his wife that he had. But sometimes, all I need to know is that Bowser kidnapped Peach Toadstool (again!) to be motivated to travel the entire galaxy and stomp Koopas. Battle: Los Angeles is definitely in the latter category.

 Of course, Snape is evil. He's freaking Hans Gruber.