Battle: Los Angeles review

As with all my reviews, this WILL contain spoilers. I will try my best to limit them, but I cannot filter them all out.

Battle: Los Angeles was released March 11/2011

Aaron Eckhart as Marine Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz
Michelle Rodriguez as USAF Technical Sergeant Elena Santos
Ramón Rodríguez as Marine 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez
Ne-Yo as Corporal Kevin Harris
Michael Peña as Joe Rincon












It chronicles the invasion of Earth by a hostile alien force and a squad of USMC soliders in LA who have been ordered into the fray to rescue civilians who have been trapped behind enemy lines.With time running out before a massive operation, they must fight their way through an unknown enemy and then back to base.



I like this movie, quite a bit. It may not have been the best written or the most well directed and probably won't win any Oscars, but all the same, it was a damn good movie. You don't have to be a hardcore video gamer to enjoy it, but it does help if you like millitary style video games.

Aaron Eckhart plays Staff Sgt. Nantz, a combat verteran from Afghanistan who lost his entire last unit and holds onto that throughout the entire movie, while some of the other Marines question why he is still on active duty. He still has demons about his last tour and that shows in his character. Eckhart does a good job of portraying a man that feels he has lost everything. He is convincing and captures the emotions very well.

The other Marines I didn't feel had the same mentallity. They seemed to be more a gang of recruits than a honed infantry unit. They spoke and reacted as though they were on their first day. The one I really bought was Ramón Rodríguez as Lieutenant Martinez. His character was supposed to be a green officer. Fresh out of officer training and he did react as such. Constantly panicking and questioning what had to be done. He did that part very well. I don't want to call the characters cut and paste or cookie cutter, because that would be inacurrate. But at the same time, the characters do feel as if they are brought from a box of cliches. In the context of this movie, it's not actually a bad thing. Because of the absolute cliche that the movie is, it makes sense to have cliche characters. To make it different would have been a mistake, I believe.

Little is shown about the invaders, aside from a few interesting shots. No real reason beyond what people assume is given for their presence on Earth. A lot of educated guesses are made and a very obvious reason is made clear, but we can't know 100% for sure because we never see anything from the invader's point of view Almost no option of diplomacy is offered, except for one small part, but it is more done in jest. Still, I think that is for the best. When a hostile force comes in and starts shooting, they probably aren't going to be interested in talking. So by removing that element, the movie is streamlined and moves forward quickly.

The only real bit we get to see about the aliens is when the Marines manage to capture one about a third of the way through the film. Even then, we don't get to see much and what we do see is fast paced and blurry. It would have served the director well to slow down and pull the camera back a bit for that part.

All in all, a good movie. Just remember to turn your brain off before you go and see it. And if you happen to like first person shooter video games, all the better. 8/10


And speaking of video games, Saber Interactive developed a tie in video game to the film. I have played through some of it and it is your garden variety shooter. Using comic strips to narrate the cutscenes, it moves along quite quickly. Not bad for what looks like a very low budget game. It is available on STEAM for $9.99

The Expendables

I just got back from seeing this movie at the theatre and I'm still a bit pumped from it, so I'll try to keep the spoilers at a minimum, but you'll have to excuse the occasional one.

Stallone should stop acting. Right now. Simple as that. I almost needed subtitles to understand him most of the time. His slurring is reaching the levels it was when he was in South Park and it doesn't make for a good bit in a movie.

Otherwise the movie was excellent. Good acting on quite a few points. Some were more believeable than others. Stallone was not one of them. It actually had a decent story, brothers and loyalties and what not.

Good to see Arnie in film again, even if it only was for a couple minutes and Willis' preformance was highly overrated and over promoted. Rourke was not in the kind of role I expected, but he did it well. Austin was also not in the role I expected, but he also did it well. Eric Roberts, the baddie in the movie, was okay, but not terribly amazing, at least not more than usual. The team of Crews, Statham, Li, Couture and Stallone was pretty good. Lundgreen was in there too, but I won't go into that, sufficied to say, Stallone frakked that part up pretty good. Twas just an "Omfg, really? REALLY?" kind of part with that. The entire bit with Lundgreen's character could have been written out and the movie would have been just as good, if not better.

The main sequence, near the end, was pretty awesome and had a few good moments, could have been better topped off by Stallone saying "We're expendable" (watch it, you'll see where I mean) to Eric Roberts.

All in all, a pretty good movie. Worth seeing. 4 of of 5.

Sucker Punch Impressions

Released today was the trailer for the newest project from acclaimed awesomeman, Zack Snyder

<- him



The title of the project, is called Sucker Punch

I didn't think too much of it either, when I heard of it. Especially when I heard it had Vanessa Hudgens in it (commentary: blargh).

But then several posters were released, showing the female leads from the film and it suddenly became interesting. And then the trailer was released today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpGmrF_1JUI
And a whole new level of awesome was created.
The trailer, which comes in at 1:26, shows a world that is only limited by imagination. A world where giant, minigun wielding samurai and regular samurai clash with Nazis and and US Black Ops agents decked out in Medieval armor and carrying machine guns. A world where strippers and mob bosses rule over insane asylums and dragons fly through the skies fighting scantaly clad female badasses who arm themselves with the latest in high tech assault rifles. And a real look inside the mind and how spending too much time can blur reality.

A really fair comparison would be to the recent Alice in Wonderland. But with that said, Alice in Wonderland didn't have assault rifles or heavy weapons.

The Avengers news

So, in case you are one of the few people on this planet that hasn't heard the news, Joss Whedon has been OFFICIALLY attached to direct The Avengers movie.

I'll give you a minute to come down from that orgasmic high.



All done? good.

Anyway. With this announcement, the internet rumor mill has been buzzing on this subject. A lot of people, most in fact, are saying that this would make the movie basically a total win, even though even pre-production hasn't even started.

Do I agree? well, lets see what else Joss has done..........

I see no problem with giving it the stamp of internet win already.

Not to mention the other talent already attached to this project *cough* Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson *cough* it may just be the most awesome movie of the decade.

My advice to the theaters that are going to show the film, is to have Paramedics onsite for every showing in case of rabid fangirls, overawesome orgasmiming (and yes, I know that is not a word), hysteria and unconciousness.

On second thought, maybe just showing the movie stricting in hospitals would be a better idea. You know, so help is right there when needed, and it will be needed