Call Of Duty: The Movie.
Led by their skillful staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart), a platoon of gutsy Marines, including Santos (Michelle Rodriguez), Simmons (Taylor Handley) and Lockett (Cory Hardrict), fight to protect all humankind from astonishingly powerful aliens who’ve suddenly invaded Los Angeles.
Ever since that first awesome trailer came out, my interest level went sky-high. And then I found out it was based on real events, so then I got even crazier about this. Then I saw it.
If you are 13, love playing shoot-em-up video games, and just want to goof around with your friends, this is the movie for you. There is non-stop shooting left-and right, which is actually pretty entertaining because there are plenty of aliens, explosions, guns, tanks, spaceships, and helicopters to hold your interest with loud noises all over the place just to make sure your eyes are on the screen. I was somewhat entertained with all this havoc, however, that can only go so far.
All the action was fine until everybody in this movie had to open their mouths, and that’s when everything went downhill from there. The writer of this film, Christopher Bertolini, sucks. I honestly don’t know if this guy was taking this seriously, or just watched a whole bunch o war films, and put every single cliched line you could think of. When these people all start talking it’s most cheesy, predictable stuff you have ever heard. Almost every sentence that these Marines use ends with a big “Hoo-rah”, and every time they get soft and talk about their feelings, they all sound like their gonna cry, and everybody around them is going to cuddle with them. This is some of the most macho bullshit that I have ever heard in a film, and if I were a Marine, I would be pretty pissed that this is the kind of image I got.
Let’s not forget to mention the one who really effed this all up in the first place, and that’s director Jonathan Liebesman. If you heard about a film that’s “Black Hawk Down, but with aliens instead of Somalis” you would be so siked and think it’s going to be awesome, however this dude somehow messes that up too. There’s no real story here, and the only explanation we get as to why the Aliens are attacking Los Angeles off all places, is because they need water supply. But then again, that makes no damn sense either. And although this film is some mindless entertainment, sometimes it’s almost unbearable how Liebesman uses this shaky-cam and it does get pretty annoying after awhile, since it really is all over the place. Also, I’m really annoyed by how in almost every war film that the enemies always die within that first shot, and the good guys barely ever get shot even if they are like 10 feet away. Always annoys me, and here that doesn’t change.
Aaron Eckhart really does have that huge potential to be an A-list star, and an Oscar contender, but it’s when he does shit like this that really screws him over. Eckhart does a good job with this material, and it’ surprise, because I don’t know how anyone could, but the problem is that he does try a little too hard. But I can’t really criticize him all that much because when you have Michelle Rodriguez, Ne-Yo, and Bridget Moynahan as your supporters, you can’t really expect an Oscar-quality performance.
Consensus: Battle: Los Angeles has the look and feel of a video game, that some people will actually enjoy, but if you want good acting, reasonable story, and some smart dialogue, do not look here.
3/10=SomeOleBullShitt!!
Dan the Man's Movie Reviews 
Man oh man. I can’t help but agree with you on almost all the points you make, but at the same time, I thoroughly enjoyed this film a whole lot more than you did!
What’s wrong with a little stupid mindless action from time to time, eh? I guess people who expect quality films from Michael Bay deserve everything they get – I didn’t expect much from this film, and I got exactly what I asked for. Soldiers killing aliens. Might annoy some, but didn’t annoy me. I think it did exactly what it said on the box.
Great review anyway, and as I mentioned, I agree with many of your points!
It’s fun mindless action, but I still expected more with so much potential this actually had.
I’m in the same boat. I’ll agree with pretty much all points in this review, however those faults didn’t detract from the movie quite as much as they did for Dan. I still had a moderately fun time with it. At the end of the day it was a pretty generic movie and I was slightly disappointed as I felt it could’ve been better. But it was decent as a mindless popcorn flick. Not horrible though.
A mindless popcorn flick that just had such a terrible script I couldn’t help but laugh at everything that was said. The action was good though!
Great review, but hang on — based on real events???? I thought I read that somewhere but what exactly was this ‘real event’?
Well, where they got the idea from. My bad!
I understand where you are coming from with your complaints, but I also agree with the first reviewer in saying that sometimes it’s “mindless” action like this that thoroughly entertains me. I don’t regret the ticket price. I thought the action was exciting and the aliens in particular were really well done. They aren’t as culturally interesting as District 9, but I really enjoyed seeing the different levels of leadership and types of weapons and ships they used and so on. It almost made me want to see a movie from the aliens’ side rather than marines. It was a fun flick.
Liebesman is directing Wrath of the Titans, which will either make the had-potential-so-so Clash even worse or make up for it. Time will tell.
I don’t mind mindless entertainment, but this is just total crap because every time these people would talk, it seemed like every cliche a movie could ever have.
I can totally agree with you on many points here, Dan. I also sat through this movie recently, and some of it was fun, but most of it was just incoherent and cliched. So many people I know were so hyped over this after seeing the trailers, but my bullshit detector went off, since all I saw was an overhyped, cliched alien invasion film. That’s all this was too. I love explosions, action and mayhem as much as the next guy, but you need a little more than that in your bag o’ tricks, you know? Good review!
I love watching things just blow up left-and-right, but too many screenplay cliches here started to bother me longer and longer throughout this film really.
This wasn’t a great movie – I have to agree with you on that one. But I thought I was biased against it to begin with because I really dislike most ‘alien’ movies with a sub-par (or in this case, a non-existant) plot. One alien movie I really like though is District Nine. Have you seen it? It’s brilliant.
District 9 is awesome and so much better than this mindless garbage.
DesertoftheReel here, I enjoyed the movie but mostly because its absolutely ludicrous, incredibly shallow/predictable and features nearly all the cliches you would expect from a War/Alien invasion film.
Also, never ever say ‘its going to be alright’ before someone gets onboard a helicopter, they’ll be dead as soon as the character turns his/her back.
Haha true! Never say those words or you are ultimately fried.
[…] Dan The Man has a less than enthusiastic appraisal: “Battle: Los Angeles has the look and feel of a video game, that some people will actually enj… […]
Great review. I just saw this movie, what a major disappointment. Here is my review if you want to check it out. http://moviereviewer96.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/review-battle-los-angeles/