Recently, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking suggested that if alien life exists, we shouldn’t be in a rush to make first contact. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” he said. “I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach. If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Consider Battle: Los Angeles Hawking’s cinematic “I told ya so.”

Battle: Los Angeles is essentially Independence Day meets Black Hawk Down, a film that follows in a rich alien invasion tradition first launched by Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. Thankfully the film lacks Independence Day’s juvenile, crowd-pleasing tone. Battle: Los Angeles takes itself seriously and therefore, so do we. Much of the credit for this belongs to its star, Aaron Eckhart, who leads a platoon of U.S. Marines through a devastated Santa Monica to rescue civilians in the midst of a massive, worldwide alien invasion. Eckhart, who is quickly proving that there is no role outside his abilities, portrays Staff Sergeant Nantz sincerely and earnestly and the movie is inestimably the better for it.

The men and women under Nantz’ command are nearly all unrecognizable, giving the film an even greater degree of veracity (real Marines were sprinkled amongst the cast and their obvious contribution went a long way in getting the military aspects of the film, from the unit camaraderie to the ethnic composition, just right—we veterans are a pretty nit-picky bunch!). We learn just enough about these individuals before the aliens descend, that when they begin to fall on the battlefield, we genuinely care. We are in the midst of the disorienting urban melee with them (filmed almost entirely with handheld cameras—gird your stomachs), seeing only what they see, learning about their extraterrestrial opponents one bullet ridden block at a time.

The film’s visual effects are terrific. The alien bombardment early on is genuinely terrifying and, in a cinematic history chalk full of these sorts of tales, something new. The alien aircraft—advanced technology by way of steampunk—are creative and inventive, even if the beings that power them leave something to be desired.

It’s no secret that some critics have been savaging this film in ways that seem completely out of proportion with its failings. Roger Ebert, for example, gave the film only half a star. I had read many of these reviews before I attended Battle: Los Angeles, and like a scene in the film during which our heroes endeavor to find the weakest spot on an alien cadaver, I kept waiting for the moment to arrive when the level of vitriol finally made sense. That moment never came. Is the film derivative and unoriginal? Largely. It is a perfect film? Not by a long shot. But it is a tense and entertaining example of how a familiar genre can be combined with another, seemingly incompatible genre, to produce something, if not groundbreaking, at least certainly equal to the sum of their parts.

© Copyright 2011 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan, Michael Peña, Ramon Rodriguez, Cory Hardrict, Gino Anthony Pesi, Ne-Yo, James Hiroyuki Liao, Adetokumboh M'Cormack, Noel Fisher, Bryce Cass, Neil Brown Jr., Taylor Handley
Rated PG-13 for sustained and intense sequences of war violence and destruction, and for language.
Running Time: 116 minutes