Science fiction meets war movie in the Battle for Los Angeles, which was on TV this week. Read here whether the movie is worth it
Alien invasions are nothing special (in movies). World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles therefore wanted to offer something new in the science fiction sub-genre. The 70 million blockbuster, which grossed over 200 million worldwide in 2011, combined the attack from outer space with the up-close realism of recent war films. It was shown on TV on Friday and you can catch up on it via streaming
Stream now: This is what the science fiction film is about
Everywhere on Earth, an alien invasion is being recorded. Los Angeles is one of the last major cities in the world that can still fight against the invaders. World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles follows a group of marines as they fight against the menacing alien presence
Director Jonathan Liebesman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) was aiming for the equivalent of an FSK-12 rating, but based the look of his film on hard war films and thrillers. His cinematic role models were Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private James Ryan and Paul Greengrass’ 9/11 factual thriller Flight 93, so he crosses the Independence Day-style invasion story with a quasi-documentary shaky-cam look designed to put you in the middle of the action and make military defense against aliens look realistic.
(Aaron Eckhart in World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles)
The result was not particularly well received by critics. While some at least praised the action scenes of the otherwise schematically narrated film, critic Roger Ebert 2011 wrote with his usual restraint:
Battle: Los Angeles is loud, violent, ugly and stupid. Its creation reflects an appalling cynicism on the part of its makers, who don’t even attempt to make it anything more than pointless mayhem. Here we have a science fiction movie that is an insult to the words ‘science’ and ‘fiction’ and the hyphen in between.
