Batman once said that he was the not the hero Gotham wanted, but the hero Gotham needed. Battle: Los Angeles was neither the movie I wanted, nor the movie I needed. I wanted a well done war movie in a sci-fi setting. What I got was an ultra-cliched action movie starring soldiers. Seriously is it so hard to ask that characters in movies make sensible decisions? This movie is three years old but still I have to note thar’ be spoilers here.
Movie starts with the gang in helicopter heading to the staging point, Santa Monica airport. As the camera pans around the faces, I’m thinking what an interesting way to start a movie. Perhaps this will defy the conventions of this genre and put us right into the action with no back story on either the characters or the plot. Maybe the movie will reveal what is happening and who these people are as the story progresses. What an innovative style of… oh wait here is the 24 hours ago flashback. Cue up cliche number 1.
As far as I could tell the only point of the first scene was to establish that no matter how boring the next 30 minutes might get, that you should stick with it because eventually something will happen. What a terrible way to start a movie. I don’t even want to talk about the things I didn’t like in this movie, so here is what I’m going to do. I’m going to list a series of cliches that this movie does that I hated, then I’m going to talk about how I would remake this movie to be better.
Action movie cliches, in no particular order:
- Aging “too-old-for-this-shit” soldier hands in his resignation and is told he’ll be done tomorrow, you know unless something weird were to come up at the last minute, totally unlikely though.
- Fresh out of school commanding officer is eager to see real action, then totally freezes up when confronted by it.
- Establishing shots show one soldier is about to get married, and another is going to have a baby soon. You now know they have something to fight for unlike all the others who are just there for the paycheck or something.
- Rescue helo loads up wounded and then is shot down like 20 yards away, surprising probably no one. (Side note: super convenient that the wounded were on the helo when it blew up. Imagine if the chopper had gone down before picking them up and the marines would have had to make a moral choice whether to leave the wounded behind. Thank goodness we never had to see that).
- “The enemy doesn’t have an air force” and then they do.
- First half hour in the combat zone has zero visibility, afterwards I don’t think we ever see smoke again.
- Ambushed by enemies who jump from roof to roof like they live there. Rest of movie never use roofs again.
- First enemy to die takes like 100 rounds. Forever after go down with like 2 hits.
- Non soldier grabs gun and totally takes down enemy despite previous bullet point of highly trained soldier requiring 100 rounds.
- Conveniently there is only 1 command and control center. Thank god this super advanced race of warriors doesn’t understand the concept of redundancy.
- “The side streets are blocked. Take the freeway.” No. Just no.
- That last bullet just made me so mad I have to stop now before I burst a blood vessel.
Look, I see a core of decent movie in there somewhere. Like I had said at the beginning, that opening scene should have been the actual start of the movie. Straight into the action, almost documentary style. Also lose all of the bullshit musically cues. If you have to insert a swelling chorus then you didn’t do something right – for a war movie anyway. So straight into the staging area, audience has no idea what is going on. Do a quick debriefing for the commanding officers and to help orient the audience and no long pauses and sweeping shots to show confusion and frustration among the men, these men are goddamn professionals. So then the mission is laid down, it can even be the same as in the movie, go to the police station behind the bombing line and get the civilians out. You have 3 hours. And we’re off.
One thing they say about the military is that its hours of boredom for seconds of “oh shit”. No reason not to bring real life in to movie. Hell the time spent hiking up and back from the station is perfect time to do a little character development without needing to resort to flashbacks. A little banter between troops can go a long way towards getting to know them. And I don’t mean a contrived “oh this is my first day with you guys. Tell me about yourselves,” although done right it could be ok. So we get some backstory, get an introduction, and here we want to keep the squad small enough so that everyone gets some screen time. I want the audience to know at least the name of each guy, even the ones who are about to die.
Final point, I want everyone to make smart choices. Or if they aren’t smart then at least they are believable. I can’t believe that that squad took a bus onto a freeway 40 feet above the ground. What is their egress if they happen to run into the enemy? Oh turns out you don’t have one? Someone probably should have thought about that before hand or at the very least disagreed with the decision.
Its possible to have characters who are fleshed out human beings, who make reasonable decisions, and follow them through a small role in a larger conflict and still have the movie be compelling and watchable. Unfortunately that is not this movie. I give it 2 stars out of 5.
Laughlin's Line 