What I love about reviewing movies with their history in mind is that sometimes you can learn the craziest things from them. This week's film is Battle: Los Angeles.
This film came out earlier this year from Columbia Pictures with a relatively minor advertising campaign. I remember seeing a teaser trailer months before and then at the Superbowl they had another preview that made it look like the next big blockbuster. After the travesties of Transformers and the infamous Transformers 2 with Michael Bay waggling his giant robot testicles in the audience's face (it's actually in there), I was really excited for a alien robot action movie that took its audience a little more seriously. Shortly after that I saw two trailers for the movie that portrayed it in two completely different ways. The first, was a slow and somber affair with a musical overlay with slow motion and fading of dramatic scenes, especially panning shots of alien drop pods raining down onto the California coast with military helicopters flying by. It was a sight to see, and I think the appeal of the trailer was evident that I saw it on youtube on a netbook screen. Not long after I saw another trailer, both of them official, but this one made it look just like a Michael Bay action flick. Lots of yelling, explosions, jump cuts, and just oozing EXTREME! It was a little terrifying. To see such an interesting concept as a conventional war against alien invaders being fought on American soil and being done with a real budget be demoted to a Transformers level film had me scared and as a result it has taken me a month to get up the courage to see this film.
There's something I would like to talk about before continuing and that is the subject of science fiction. The genera can be defined in two ways, there is futuristic stuff, or the world being futuristic is a way to subtly comment of the reader/viewer's society or way of life. Star Wars for instance has little to comment on other than the old lesson that mean people suck where as Gattaca has very little action and is mostly a commentary on what it means to be human as well as the nature versus nurture debate. Gattaca however can be seen as the not so distant future, but the world the movie is set in is just different enough that any criticisms of the viewer are concealed enough to not offend but instead get them to keep watching. District 9 did this masterfully. As I have said I hate having a social message forced on me when I'm watching a movie, but this film which was basically about the South African apartheid shifted the oppression onto an alien species and one with flaws thus creating a new world that the viewer is unfamiliar with and must therefore reevaluate any moral and ethical judgments they prescribe to in the real world. Now I always appreciate seeing a thought provoking sci-fi movie but that does not mean that the straight up action sci-fi films are all bad. These two extremes have only in recent years begun to come together, probably starting with The Matrix. But even while substance is being injected into your sci-fi thriller it's still the action and special effects that sell the tickets. This is how Michael Bay is making his millions and the makers of Battle: Los Angeles had a similar plan in mind.
Like District 9, this film is rooted in historical fact. A little known part of World War II history is the attacks made by the Japanese navy on the western coast of North America. Not three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor there was an attack on Ellwood, California from a Japanese Submarine. Ellwood is about 70 miles from Los Angeles and had sizable oil fields. After being the victims of a surprise attack from the other side of the world and then having the Japanese shelling California created incredibly high tensions and is suspected to be the main cause for the Battle of Los Angeles. On February 25th a few days after the bombardment of Ellwood, a visual sighting was made over Los Angeles that was suspected to be Japanese air units. The city went into immediate battle readiness. For about an hour and a half artillery was fired wildly in the air supposedly causing even more panic and impressions of being under attack when in actuality there were no planes in the air. Declassified reports now suspect that a stray weather balloon may have been the cause of the panic, but since the event UFO enthusiasts has pondered if a UFO was misinterpreted as a Japanese bomber. This is the basis for the reasoning of the film. According to the film this was a scouting mission to earth and the film begins with the arrival of the main attack force. While the attack is worldwide, the events of the film focus on a small group of marines tasked with evacuating civilians from Los Angeles which is becoming occupied by hostile alien forces. What I love about this though, is that none of the back story is explained. Maybe in the director's cut we'll get an annoying conspiracy theorist character who gets to exposition his little heart out about how the government angered the aliens and they're out for revenge or something, but in its current version, you just have to know the history which makes this little shout out to obscure WWII history even cooler.
The basic plot is this, aliens attack, Los Angeles is going to be carpet bombed in an attempt to wipe out their initial invasion force, groups of marines are going into the blast area to evacuate civilians, and they only have three hours! This is simple. It is a basic survival horror film with a military twist. Normally most of the characters will be picked off one by one by the seemingly invincible monster but in this case, all the characters are highly trained and heavily armed soldiers. This is similar to the setup in Aliens but these marines seem infinitely more confident and competent than their space faring counterparts. While the basic premise seems like survival horror, the feel of the movie is a lot more like a serious modern war movie like Black Hawk Down. According to the director, Jonathan Liebesman, he looked at war movies as well as footage from soldiers in Fallujah to put together the film and their efforts really show. He also had a tactical advisor on staff to instruct actors on set how to move in particular formations and how to react to different situations. This is not your Michael Bay soldiers that go in guns blazing and blow up everything. True, they do a lot of shooting and blowing stuff up, but it's more of the fighting for your life kind of action and the attempt to have you identify with the characters worked just enough that you actually care whether they live or die. This feel of the movie is partially due to the fact that they refrain from showing the aliens for most of the film which makes the initial ambush of the team all the more frightening, like being attacked by an army of snipers. However, once more of the aliens and their ships are shown on camera the suspense dies down and the film begins to lose its appeal and become more of a shoot 'em up action film.
From the previews it looked like this film was marketed based on its visuals which are pretty amazing, but they are not anything too special compared to films from the last few years. This is probably because almost all of the special effects were done without the aid of computer animation so it didn't look as crisp as other films. Filming was done not in Los Angeles but in Baton Rouge. For one particular segment where they blow up a bus on a freeway, they constructed a multi story green screen as the backdrop to edit in Los Angeles, but the explosions are real. I am always a fan of using real effects over computer generated ones as is Liebesman who regretted not being able to use models for more of the aliens.
I've made a couple of references to Michael Bay and they seem warranted just on viewing the movie. However, Michael Bay is actually a big part of this film's past. Director Jonathan Liebesman is a South African director who got his start working on horror films. His work caught the eye of Michael Bay who recruited him for his production company Platinum Dunes which remakes old horror movies. Liebesman's association with Bay clearly had an influence on him as this is his first action movie. However even with the $100 million budget the action was restrained except for a few maddeningly intense firefights. Liebesman's background in horror is probably the most noticeable thing in this film and I called it without knowing anything about the man while watching. The initial ambush scene I mentioned earlier is sort of scary but when one marine gets separated and hides in an empty house, it screams monster movie. You know the monster is coming to get him and so does he, but you have to wait for it. The low to the ground camera and emphasis on doors and windows brought attention to what Liebesman is good at and that is creating suspense.
The characters were another thing I liked in this movie. The tough call was made to not deify our armed forces but to give the characters lots of flaws which resulted in a group of realistic characters. One of my favorites was the character of TSgt. Elena Santos played by Michelle Rodriguez. Honestly I don't really like her acting and I've never liked any of her roles, mostly because she plays the over the top strong female character that always comes across as forced and being the token woman in an action movie that has to be put in as an attempt to appeal to a broader audience. Her inclusion in this movie is no different but her character was downplayed to the point that it was believable. Yes, there are female soldiers and a lot of them, but even now they are not assigned active combat roles (except for artillery). This is very important because it means that when the lost tech sergeant joins their group, the marines skepticism of a woman joining their group has a tactical basis and not a sexist one. In reality she would have had far less experience than any of the combat veterans in the film and her expertise was in tracking transmissions. She is readily accepted into their group but the fact that the male characters actually have a reason to doubt her combat ability is really an isolated case in film which I found very interesting.
My other favorite character was Michael Pena, one of the rescued civilians. This film is a landmark for action films in my opinion for its gritty realism. It is one thing to have a movie about soldiers going out to kill a bunch of aliens. It's another thing entirely to have a rescue mission where the hardened soldiers are shown in a role protecting and dying for civilians they have just met. Among the civilians they find are two children which completely changes the attitudes of the marines but the film in no way becomes a "protect the children" moral tale. Instead through the character of Michael Pena the theme of sacrifice is solidified as he joins the fight against the aliens for about 5 seconds saving his son and one of the marines before getting gunned down. His death is given little significance in the film just because it's going for realistic timing and in a firefight you don't have the luxury of a 20 minute Hollywood dying monologue. But what does come through is that he almost certainly knew he was going to die but did not hesitate at all to save his son which is noticed immediately by the soldiers. This fits in with the main subplot about Sgt. Michael Nantz getting his team killed in Iraq (watch the movie, you'll get it). What I took away from this very short sequence was that there are certain fundamental qualities that can manifest in all people and our typical perception is that only certain people like soldiers, police, firemen, ever put themselves in danger to save others like there is something special about those people to begin with. In this situation it's a civilian who does this without hesitation taking on the soldier role. To me this was easily the most powerful scene in the movie even though it was a subplot.
Even more interesting is that in action movies whenever a civilian jumps into the fight they usually survive and seem to have incredible luck or innate ability. I, Robot comes to mind when Dr. Calvin takes Spooner's gun and starts killing robots. She's a main character so the most she would get is a shoulder wound. The real purpose of something like that is to elevate the importance of supporting characters that serve little purpose except for exposition and to draw in the audience by saying, "look! that person is just like you and look at all the cool stuff they are doing!" It's a marketing strategy that works but is very awkward if you see the pattern. This film differs greatly from this strategy by killing the well meaning civilian almost immediately, and instead of the soldiers shaking their heads saying "what an idiot to jump out of cover like that" they all seem to understand the significance of his intentional sacrifice.
My overall impression of this film was that it was ok. Was there anything really wrong with it? Not really. It had an interesting concept, ok characters, great action, and the drama was a little heavy in between the shootouts. This seems more like an experiment in film making than an actual money making action film. There is a very simple concept and plot that was tweaked in many ways to experiment with character roles as well as a what if scenario that really doesn't have a happy ending. It ends on a positive note to let people leave the theater feeling good but really Earth is still screwed at the end. I still can't help compare this to District 9 because they are the only two movies I have seen anything like this so I'm setting the bar pretty high. I also have to compliment the director on doing a phenomenal job as this is his first non-horror film. Sadly I don't see this film getting too much attention in coming years as the hype seems to have died down within a month of its release. If you like military science fiction this is definitely the movie for you, if you want to see lots of action and pyrotechnics see this, but if you are looking for an all around great film with a lot of sophistication and class, Battle: Los Angeles made a valiant effort but fell short. No doubt it is an entertaining movie I will enjoy for a long time but it's not going to win any awards.
Movies Referenced:
2011-Battle: Los Angeles
2009-Transformers 2
2009-District 9
2007-Transformers
2004-I, Robot
2001-Black Hawk Down
1997-Gattaca
1977-Star Wars
