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+--- Thread: Battle: Los Angeles (/showthread.php?tid=2293)
Battle: Los Angeles - Greg_phpbb3_import1 - 07-30-2011
Great concept, poorly execute. Not completely bad but it could have been done better.
Aliens land. The marines are tasked to get rid of them. Most of the first 3/4 of the film is a rescue in Santa Monica. The patrol goes. They encounter the bad guys. Gunfights and explosions ensue. I think it all came down to the lame dialogue and the cliched characters. There is the hard charging Staff Sergeant who is on his last day. They have the green lieutenant who think he knows everything. And the squad has the virgin and the jersey guy and guy about to get married. blah blah blah.
It could have been a really fun film if it had more sword fights. It did have plenty of gun battles where it was hard to figure who was shooting at who. Sure, it's a nod to the fog of war, but I'm watching a film. I'm not actually in a war.
In the end, they had to tell the audience a million times the name of the McGuffin. We need to find the McGuffin. If we can just stop the McGuffin, we can beat these bastards. Hey, I think the McGuffin is over there. Let's do something heroic to get the McGuffin. If you just hit the McGuffin in this spot, all will be well. Stupid McGuffin.
The film was also long. Good actions films should clock in at ninety minutes, unless you really know what you are doing. The chase into Santa Monica seemed to last my entire adult life. Which left little time for the attack on the McGuffin. This made the McGuffin scene too easy.
Oh well. It was a rental. It wasn't near as bad as it could have been but it wasn't as good as I wanted. I want more out of Monta Vista grads like Aaron Eckhart. The most amazing thing about the film was that it was filmed in Louisiana. A thing I didn't know until I watched the extras on the DVD.