Beach front property values suddenly decline
during California's newest war. Photo courtesy of
http://www.battlela.com/

In outer space, no one can hear you purr. . . .

Don't go see Battle: L.A. unless you're not embarrassed to have a good time. It's full of flaws in logic, plot and acting but it's a big movie in terms of action and special effects. Battle: Los Angeles breaks the mold of the usual disaster epic by going straight to the good stuff without wasting time on character development and story background. This movie is just a bunch of Marines figuring out how to kill something new and challenging. If you can't enjoy it from that viewpoint go eat a hamburger instead.

Hey, is that the guy
who . . . ? Naw, I guess not.
http://www.battlela.com/

Battle L.A. stars Aaron Eckhart as the guilt-ridden combat vet Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz; Bridget Moynahan as Michele the hot civilian chick whose sole task is to adore the heroic Nantz; Michelle Rodriguez as tough hot babe Tech Sergeant Elena Santos, the Rambella of the Air Force; and Ramon Rodriguez as 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez, victim of the most cliche'd role in military history. I recognized absolutely no one in the entire cast, although for a moment I thought I knew Eckhart from a role in Star Trek Voyager. Nope, that's not him. I immediately felt a good vibe from Eckhart/Nantz, however, since in the movie's opening minutes Nantz plows along the beach for his morning run, huffing and sweating while a group of younger Marines leaves him in the dust at a speed that allows them a normal conversation. Cripes, I hate it when that happens.

Toughest commando
a non-combat
Air Force occupa-
tional specialty
ever produced.
http://www.battlela.com/

Director Jonathan Liebesman wastes no time getting to the good part of the story. Instead of following the old Irwin Allen pattern of at least an hour of brutal introduction to characters and the reasons we're supposed to care if they live or die, Liebesman compresses that human sympathy section into about ten minutes, giving us a brief glimpse into the personal lives of modern Marines. Gosh, the Marine Corps looks like such a friendly and informal place, it's just a bunch of nice fellows and girls having fun in training. In the background we get constant updates over the local TV channels regarding the mysterious arrival of clusters of meteorites, coincidentally hitting the water offshore from the world's greatest coastal population centers.

If the human race doesn't see an attack like that coming we deserve all the hacking and slashing and blowing up that we get. In this story no one seems to realize what's happening, even after half of L.A. goes up in flames. With all the combat-ready hoopla these soldiers spout you'd think a platoon of infantry would know enough to spread out and stop talking in the combat zone, but there's none of that elementary tactical wisdom here. Along with superior firepower, the alien invaders also mastered the simpler things like ducking and taking the high ground. Our boys have to learn that through O.J.T.

Alien invaders present lucky Marines with completely
new things to break.
Photo courtesy of http://www.battlela.com/

There are so many technical issues in this movie that I will only skim a few. The basic premise for the invasion, for example, is that these interstellar invaders need liquid water to fuel their ships, and Earth is a rare jewel, twinkling through the darkness with the blue hue of mostly water. Never mind that an alien race with this sort of technology could find all the water they need in space, and probably would have figured out how to melt it by now -- everyone just accepts this pitiful explanation with a shrug and an OK. They're Marines, they kill stuff for a living, and they leave the big thinking to the guys on TV. Whoever wrote this story was in a hurry and just tossed in the water theory without much critical effort. I prefer another explanation, that these stalwart alien soldiers have arrived on Earth in search of cats, a truly abundant resource in Earth's cities but rare and precious to a culture totally lacking anything warm and cuddly that purrs.

Actually much of what happens in this movie could more easily be explained by the need for cats than by the need for water. An example is the mysterious glowing red hardware the Marines find guarding the underground command complex of the alien forces. We assume at first that these are sentry robots or proximity mines but they appear to totally disregard the Marines even though the alien soldiers went to a lot of trouble to install them. Clearly these contraptions were designed to capture cats, not battle humans.

Battle L.A. turned out to be a fun romp through a new version of the military's latest tactical training simulator -- not so much a movie as a video game someone else is playing. There's not much blood and gore and the Marines seem pretty much impervious to pain. The only real carnage you see is what's done to the aliens. Everyone else dies fairly neatly and without getting too upset. It's war as seen through the eyes of a Marine recruiting sergeant, an army of good-looking guys and gals out to save the world without getting too terribly dirty. There's no need to follow the Geneva Convention so anything goes, including ripping apart a living enemy soldier with your bare hands and punching individual internal organs into glistening goo as you discover what parts these fascinating enemies literally can't live without. Oo-rah! Buy yourself a ticket and let's go vicariously kill an unknown intelligent species! and save Earth's kitties for our own couches and alleyways.