Battle: Los Angeles is a predictable and unoriginal sci-fi action movie. Although I wasn’t a huge fan of District 9, I never thought it was as good as everyone else seemed to, it was a fairly original take on a sci-fi action film. I have heard some say that Battle: LA is a new District 9. In short, they’re wrong, it’s not! What they seemed to have done is taken some generic action characters, a fairly bog standard and weak action plot and then added a lot of fairly decent CGI in alien form. It doesn’t wash with me or hide any of the films short comings.
The lack of script would not be too bad if there was some great action but I just didn’t feel the action scenes worked. There were lots of them and just not enough linking them together. My biggest gripe is the camera work, one word sums that up – shocking! I’m not a big fan of the ‘wobbly camera’ shot, a steady cam is a wonderful invention please use it! In Battle: LA the annoyance of the wobbly camera is so bad that it is a distraction, the cameraman didn’t seem to have a sense of direction and never seemed to know what they should be pointing at. Add to this the fact a lot of shots were just too close up to the actors faces. On top of that you add very loud gunfire and explosions for what seemed like most of the 2 hours it felt like I was banging my head against the wall. All I could think is ‘I hope these aliens have brought an asprin!’
Some would argue these are effects to make the film seem more real and this is obviously what the director has thought and yes it can be used to make a film more real, I loved Black Hawk Down and this used some of the above effects but it just did it better, well constructed way and because it actually had a plot it wasn’t relentless.
If I’m honest Battle: Los Angeles was exactly what I expected which is a shame because I thought the trailer was really well thought out and hoped that their may be something in the film that might have lifted it above average, it hasn’t! I’m certain some will love all the action but I want more than that from a film. Great trailer, average film.
5
Ste 1.04.2011
Definitely agree with the wobbly cam comment. I didn’t like it. Made me feel ill. Even questioned whether there was something wrong with my eyes! I thought the film was okay, but yes, I expected something better…
James Rae 12.07.2011
I watched the first12 minutes (if I’d known they were using the ShakyCam I wouldn’t even have bothered). It seems like directors are now suffering from ShakyCam Syndrome – guys, it SUCKS!!