Monday, October 10, 2011

Battle Los Angeles ~ Pretty cool, but plot holes.


If you want to see a group of Marines kick some alien butt, this is your movie. They take their lumps too, but there’s one thing aliens need to know when they decide to invade, Americans may have issues with each other, but we will always join forces to kick your lousy tentacle derrieres.

Sgt. Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is a war decorated veteran of the US Marines. He is tough as nails, confident under fire, and looking to retire. The last thing he needs is a bunch of aliens invading the West Coast and making a fuss. Looks like retirement will have to wait.    
  
2nd Lt. William Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez) is fresh out of officer training school, which means is that when the crap hits the fan, we can look forward to the “lost leader” moment when the battle-scarred veteran (Nantz) makes him pull his head out of his duppa. (I wonder how many times I can use a word than means ass without saying ass, except in parenthesis because we all know parenthesis mean it’s just between you and me, not all those other people reading this review, right?)

Why are they here? What do they want? Why? Is the magical question that only people on the TV reveal in these types of movies lately so that we don’t detract from the fighting scenes. Their mission is to enter the battle zone, make it to the where some survivors are, and get them out before the Air Force bombs their alien tukuses to oblivion. What could go wrong right?

It would seem as though Sgt. Nantz has some issues to overcome, such as his men hating his rump because of the rumors they’ve heard all through the years. Nantz was the sole survivor of a mission in the war supposedly sacrificing his men, to get a medal. His lieutenant is “green.” Now he has to figure out how to beat the invaders.

I like the movie. It is action packed, exciting at times, and each actor lends to the overall story. My beef with this movie is that in order to beat the aliens, we got to do “this certain thing” and there’s no way we as humans would have known that, but apparently we do. Without giving away the ending, this “thing” controls other things, which the humans didn’t know they had until halfway through the movie, so that part doesn’t work out once the movie is over and you think about the plot.

Other than that, it’s a fast moving, back-side kicking movie. I did have a conversation with a friend who wanted to know why the Americans always make movies in which the USA is always the tide-turning force in these alien invasion movies. Besides the fact that we are one of the most technologically advanced nations, the USA kicks rump!

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