Battle: LA stirs cinematic ‘doldrums’

I think most people would consider March and April to be the doldrums of the cinematic year. The Oscars is still on everyone's mind, and summer's still too far away for anyone to be thinking about big-budget blockbusters.

However, if you're lucky, there will be at least a few good movies worth spending your money to see in the theatres. I've been pleasantly surprised these last few springs to go to a movie that probably could hold its own—at least cinematically—against the summer heavy-hitters. Battle: LA continues this streak of good movies that have made the last weeks of winter a little more bearable.

In the world of Battle: LA, Earth has been attacked by a host of invading aliens. The first couple minutes evoke a Cloverfield-esque cinematography. The camera whirls around while people and objects are zoomed in and out.

But then the audience is taken back 24 hours before the initial battle begins. Here, the film delivers the compulsory back-story development of the characters—mostly because without this you wouldn't be able to tell who is who in the ensuing action.

We are first introduced to Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), who is a Marine on the verge of retirement. Of course, with Armageddon fast approaching, his holiday will be postponed.

Battle: LA then focuses in on other members of what will become Nantz's platoon, but their back-stories are pretty much irrelevant to the plot. Countdown to the first alien encounter does take some time, but you can't knock the filmmakers for trying to invest some humanity into a film about aliens.

Numerous explosions and quick cuts later, Nantz's platoon is soon sneaking around the streets of Santa Monica searching for civilians trapped behind enemy lines.

As you can imagine, things don't go according to plan and a few unlucky soldiers end up killed in action. The civilians, though, are eventually found, and then it becomes one long marathon to the Forward Operating Base (FOB) and hopefully safety.

I won't belabor you with more plot (mostly because there isn't much more), but we are given several—not so subtle—hints about an event that took place in Nantz's time in Iraq that has earned him a reputation that is, shall we say, infamous.

As a result of this, tensions between him and his soldiers arise, adding a little more depth to the scenes not involving bright explosions or extremely poorly aimed bullets from alien weaponry.

The fact that the soldiers are toting around civilians—two of whom are kids—also means that the filmmakers were trying to go for the heartstrings of the sentimental.

There is a scene involving a father and son (civilians) and Nantz that conveys somewhat simple, but still well-done, tragedy. The fact that Eckhart is such a good actor helps the movie where it probably would have failed otherwise.

But what about the aliens? Unlike some extraterrestrial movies, the aliens in Battle: LA actually seem to have an infantry that personally walks around the streets of Earth's major cities and systematically zaps the inhabitants into oblivion.

I suppose this sounds like a painstaking process, but not every alien race owns tripods like the ones in War of the Worlds. The first time we see an alien it looks more like a Bionicle (if you don't know what that is, Google it). Later, our heroes perform what looks like open-heart surgery on one to discover the most efficient way to kill it. They're not nearly the most creative or frightening aliens I've ever seen, but the noise they make is slightly disturbing.