I just saw Battle: LA, it was flawless. It is probably the first movie I've been to in over a year that the audience clapped for at the end, and that was in the middle of the day.
I am not sure how broad an audience it will cater to as a sci-fi war flick, but I think that it will probably be something that military folks will actually enjoy which is usually not the case when Hollywood makes a movie about a niche group. I got the feeling that the producers really put some time into making the military relationships spot on. I think that the biggest thing this movie has going for it is how realistic it is, I am not sure if I would consider it a full fledged part of the new "hyper-real" science-fiction genre of movies(Inception, Batman franchise, Adjustment Bureau) but it is as close as you can get with an alien movie. You could replace the aliens with any of America's technologically capable terrestrial enemies(Russia, China, Canada) and lose nothing story wise.
This movie will likely rival Red Dawn as far as cult following, I plan to buy it the first day, hell, I'll probably even make it my first Blu-Ray. I would not be surprised if there was a minute spike in ammo and survival gear sales due to Battle:LA, it is just that realistic and emotion provoking. The scenes in Santa Monica during the first 24 hours are exactly what you would expect if the American mainland were ever attacked by a military force of any kind.
The realistic nature makes the aliens interesting too. We don't see them all that much, but when we do they aren't always the big daunting monsters or little weaklings we are used to in alien invasion movies. During the man to alien fighting scenes if you watch the aliens mannerisms you notice that they are moving and working the same way the protagonists are, they fumble around when things go wrong and even protect their fallen. This seemed like a new idea to me, similar to District 9, but new for an invasion movie- granted we haven't really ever gotten an alien ground invasion movie before.
Another really refreshing aspect of the movie is that they did not force any kind of love story. Eckhart and Moynahan kind of had a connection that you could see turning into something in the events after the movie ends, but they did not force any kind of love connection between the hardened Marine and the civilian veterinarian in the heat of a god damn alien invasion like Hollywood likes to do so often.
My mom is going to see it tonight, which is very unusual, she couldn't care less about sci-fi or war movies, I am waiting to see what she thinks of it. I love resistance movies and sci-fi movies, so there is little that could have made me dislike this one, it will be interesting to see what a non-fan thinks.
I wrote this on Friday. It turned out that my mom saw it at a South OC theater very near Camp Pendleton, and thus full of Marines. Apparently they really liked it as there were many ooh-rah's and only one face palm that she could see. It also sounds like her theater had a much stronger applause than mine did.
One more thing to add, this movie shows once again how useless Rotten Tomatoes is. No, this movie is not going to win film of the year, although it could be a contender for some of the lesser awards, but it is at least as good as any movie in any genre anyone could put it in. That Rotten Tomatoes has it in the low 30% range shows that their system is flawed, or that their critics are out of touch.
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