I am well-known amongst my friends for loving movies where aliens blow shit up. In Battle: Los Angeles, the aliens are more destructive than most. They land off the coast of Santa Monica (and twenty other world cities – shocker!) in preparation for a simultaneous attack. And a small group of soldiers from disparate backgrounds are left to rescue a handful of civilians and save the day. Think Independence Day lite. There’s even a mother ship that controls the drones, so it’s hardly original. In fact there are enough holes in the plot to drive a humvee through. On the plus side though, the battle scenes are frenetic and pretty thrilling, and the whole thing is ultimately saved from irrelevance by the ruggedly handsome Aaron Eckhart, who is sympathetic, compelling, and (how do I say this?) vigorous. If California hadn’t gone all Prop-8-Hate-State, I’d probably marry him or something.
Actually, the tragedy of Battle: Los Angeles is that it filmed in Louisiana. I had coffee today with a great lady from the Location Managers Guild of America, who was telling me how production in this town has basically been eviscerated. Sounds like there are more movies filming in Cape Town today than there are in Hollywood.