Joe Neumaier Thursday, March 10th 2011, 4:00 AM
Movies,Entertainment,Arts, Entertainment, and Media,Washington, DC,The Hurt Locker,U.S. Marine Corps,Santa Monica,Paris,Jeff Goldblum,Fred Sanford,Independence Day (Movie),Avatar,Charlie Sheen,Jonathan Liebesman,Battle: Los Angeles,Los Angeles,Michelle Rodriguez,Aaron Eckhart
'Battle: Los Angeles' stars Aaron Eckhart as Sergeant Nantz, who leads a group of marines in a fight against alien invaders.
With Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez. Aliens attack L.A; humans battle back. Director: Jonathan Liebesman (1:56). PG-13: Violence. At area theaters.
"Aliens? That's not possible, right?" exclaims one shocked jarhead in "Battle: Los Angeles." Sadly it is, soldier -- and unlike other alien-themed movies coming this week and next, this one isn't original, or even bearable.
By its thudding end, audiences may wish they could be zapped from the theater to escape the buzzing in their ears.
A war of the worlds can be the perfect escapist movie -- what will the intergalactic SOBs look like, what do they want, how will we take 'em down? But "Battle: L.A." -- no need for plot description, it's right there in the title -- is simply a big video game (of course, a gaming tie-in is in stores now). The aliens need water, so they land off the coast of the obligatory cities (Washington, Paris, blah, blah, blah). Silly Earthlings assume those are meteors heading our way. Until drone ships start blasting L.A., leaving the military no choice but to start the bombing in five minutes.
Before we drop the Big One, though, the Marines, under the command of Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), are the first to land in the ET zone, which no longer means just Charlie Sheen headlines. "Those bombs will level Santa Monica, sir!" says a shocked corporal. No more rollerbladers, musclemen or indie movie award shows. Society will just have to rebuild.
Soon feisty leatherneck Michelle Rodriguez shows up, looking like she's wondering why they just couldn't have used her "Avatar" outtakes for this, yet all we've seen of the space invaders is a brief glimpse of human-size monsters in metal firing laser blasts. Did they plan to have any aliens in their alien film, to paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in a movie that wasn't "Independence Day," which, now that we've mentioned it, is a better movie.
That's because "Independence Day" was a great ride with kicky performances and a payoff. This movie -- like "Skyline" earlier this year -- is a slow trudge. It rushes from one La-La Land firefight to the next, its people a blur of barking jarheads, its camerawork jumpy, its soundtrack full of those loud industrial honks that signal We Are Not Alone. When the mothership finally arrives, its a clinking, clanking, clattering collection of metallic parts, as if Fred Sanford's junkyard suddenly became airborne.
If the filmmakers intended "The Hurt Locker" with little green men, it blew up in their face. Which, by the way, the aliens don't even have.
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