Have you watched it yet? Ok, great. On with the review.

So as you can tell from the trailer, Battle: Los Angeles is set during an alien invasion. I’m all on for alien invasion films. It’s been a good while since I’ve seen a proper one (unless you count Transformers, and I don’t) so I was up for it.

At the same time though, as I mentioned in the earlier post, I wasn’t really expecting much from it. Yeah, it was a great trailer but I think it’s fair to say that if you expected all films to be as good as their trailers, you’d be sorely disappointed almost every time you went to the cinema. I’m not saying that to be contrary or anything. It’s just a fact. I mean honestly, when’s the last time you went to a film and thought “Wow! That was way better than the trailer made it look!”? Personally I think “Not as bad as the trailer made it look” is almost as positive as you can hope for when it comes to trailer vs. film…

Anyway, on to the film so that I can get to the real reason I’m really writing this review…

… Except that I should probably tell you a bit about the film first.

Ok, so we start off with aliens invading Earth but the film fairly quickly gets to it’s focus – One platoon (I’m not sure if that’s the correct terminology, let me know if I’m wrong) of Marines in Santa Monica who have one mission to do during this invasion. This is not some big drama / thriller encompassing the whole of the world and the effect of the alien invasion. It’s a war film focusing on this one group of people.

The fact is that, while Battle: Los Angeles is set during an alien invasion, it’s really an war/action film, with some beautiful special effects. To that end, I thought it was very well done. I found it reasonably well structured. I thought it was exciting. I thought we got to know enough about the characters (for an action film). I thought the battles were well choreographed. I thought the special effects were fantastic. I did think some of the music was a little… melodramatic maybe, but not so much that it became annoying. Yes, some of the dialogue was a bit clichéd and a bit cheesy and I may have laughed a few times but, it’s not a film that so po-faced that laughing would signal some kind of failure in it.

I also, predictably, if you’ve ever seen any of my comments about him, thought that Aaron Eckhart was very well cast as the tough, grizzled but handsome Staff Sergeant. He brought a bit of class to the proceedings. Ne-Yo? Well, put it this way, I had no idea there was a popstar in the cast and when I found out afterwards I couldn’t guess which one he was. So I’m taking that as a good sign. Michelle Rodriguez? I really don’t like Michelle Rodriguez generally, I find her good-looking bad-ass schtick irritatingly dull… but she didn’t annoy me in this. All the same I’d like to see her play against type some time. The rest of the characters were grand, I mean they were all grappling with the clichéd dialogue but I felt they all made it through. More on that anon.

Here’s the real reason I’m writing this review.

Over the last day or two I have seen a lot of negativity around Battle: Los Angeles. At last check it was around 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. Well I’m here to be one of the voices on the other side. I thought B:LA was class fun. Ok, it’s no Starship Troopers but it put me in mind of it and Starship Troopers is probably my favourite alien film of all time so… it’d be a bit lofty to hope that B:LA could reach those heady heights… but the fact that it put me in mind of ST is an achievement.

The main criticism I’ve seen of B:LA is that it’s cliché ridden. Well that’s true. I’m not going to deny that. The beginning is a bit cringe-worthy as they roll out the characters using every disaster movie cliché in the book. That turns out ok though, given the action later on, they had to introduce the characters early on and well, you have to have something interesting to say about them no? With hindsight, it was pretty efficient actually. The only way it could have been more efficient would be if they’d just lined them up and had them salute and say their names. But then they really would have just been grunts, no different from the aliens. As for the military clichés later on, well come on. You can’t have soldiers running around without at least sometimes shouting “Hoo-Arr!” or some other such rousing call. And let’s face it, it’s not a war film if you don’t have like, the rookie and pissed off fella and people making ridiculous sacrifices and so forth. It’s just how it goes.

Oh, oh! And the most annoying criticism I’ve seen of it is people saying “Is this supposed to be some kind of military propaganda? Are we all supposed to feel good about the war in Afghanistan now?”. Good Lordi people. Where the hell did that come from? It’s a film about people doing their jobs. It’s a film about being human. It’s a film about trying to survive. It never rams any kind of jingoism or any moral or political judgement of any kind down your throat. So the characters are wearing Marine uniforms, so what? If I watched a film about a really good chef, I wouldn’t assume that film is trying to encourage me to become a chef.

What else did I want to complain about? Oh yeah. This other idea I’ve seen bandied about some reviews – that we don’t get to learn enough about what’s going on on the aliens side. I don’t get that. We hear what they’re after and it’s made more than clear that their military procedures are pretty much exactly like ours. What more do we need to know? Ok, they could have, I suppose, shown us some of what goes on with the aliens… But like I said, the film is tightly focussed on this platoon and their mission. If they started doing other stuff it would have been a completely different movie, if you know what I mean. And who cares if we don’t see their faces? Why do I want to see their faces? Just to see how good the make-up people are on the film? What does it matter?

Last thing I’m going give out about is all these complaints about the shaky camera. Now. I hate shaky camera. I suffer badly from motion sickness, check my reviews of Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity to see how that can affect my enjoyment of a film. And I didn’t particularly feel it in this. It was a little dodgy around the start but as the film went on they toned it down and I really didn’t notice any ill effects from the camera shaking. If there was any, it was not excessive in my opinion.

I think that’s enough for now.

Oh no, just briefly as well. I keep seeing people saying “It’s like District 9 without the X,Y,Z” or “It’s not half as good as District 9” or “Go watch District 9 instead”.

Shut up.

First of all – and I did really like it, gave it the same rating as I’ll give this – but District 9 is not the be all and end all of alien films. Yeah, it was good but it’s not like it’s AMAZING. And secondly, I just don’t see how you can make the comparison anyway. All that’s similar about it is that aliens come to town. That’s all. Battle: Los Angeles is a war film that happens to have some aliens in it. You’d be better off comparing it to the likes of Green Zone than District 9.

Phew. I feel better now.

… Ok, ok, I’ll be a little magnanimous. I think a lot of people maybe went into this expecting something else. I don’t know what they expected but I know I expected nothing in particular, except some good special effects. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see characters and a plot and some good battles. I guess if you were expecting more than that then you’d want to find criticism wherever it may be.

Suffice to say, I really liked Battle: Los Angeles. If it sounds like your kind of thing, then go see it. Just don’t expect some ground-breakingly breath-taking new take on the alien invasion film. Expect a competent action film and you should be alright.

8/10

Anyway. First up this week, a film I really should have reviewed by now. Burlesque.

Unfortunately for me, and possibly you as well if you really are interested in my opinion, I haven’t had a lot of time recently. Holiday season and all that. I haven’t had an evening on my own at home since… well… it’s been probably almost two weeks at this stage. I’m really gonna try and get stuff done over Christmas though.

Course that’s just excuses, it’s got nothing to do with Burlesque.

As you will hear in the review, I was initially skeptical about Burlesque. The trailer looked awful to be honest. But… I love a good musical. I like, you know, X Factor and that kind of thing. And I do think Christina Aguilera has an amazing voice. I don’t know about her being an actress but I figured she was probably just playing some version of herself in this so… shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. Burlesque is basically one of those small-town-girl-moves-to-the-big-city-with-a-dream films. This little girl happens to have a set of pipes on her.

I’m highlighting it because I thought it was great fun and I really enjoyed it but, by gods, I’m not recommending that everyone go see it. There are some great song & dance numbers and fantastic costumes but, if you’re the kind of person who thinks a strong plot or good dialogue is absolutely necessary for your enjoyment of a film then skip it – You’ll only be annoyed. For everyone else though, it’s a good ol’ romp and I won’t be surprised if at least one of the song will be up for Best Original Song at the Oscars. Expect to see cabaret, sorry, I mean burlesque, dancers twirling across the stage at the Kodak Theatre come February.

Second big film of the week is Disney’s TRON: Legacy.

It’s funny, the release of this film is leading to more than a few film reviewers (and let’s be honest, nerds) making one solemn and embarrasing confession… and I admit I am one.

Film fans, I must confess, I’ve never seen the original TRON.

I dunno why, it looks like my kind of film, I even have the DVD – 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition no less, I’ve just never got around to it. Well, I actually tried to watch it the night before I was going to see TRON: Legacy but I fell asleep after 1/2 an hour (it was 2am). I then tried to watch the last hour during lunch in work but I realised it was a region 1 DVD so no joy. And now that I’ve seen Legacy the need to see TRON is not as great. I will eventually though, I swear.

Anyway, so, everybody’s saying it but no-one really wants to say it because it’s kinda lazy… but TRON: Legacy has really spent the last few month gearing up to be this years Avatar. It’s an inescapable fact. But I guess what’s wrong with trying to emulate the highest grossing film in history right?

Like Avatar, TRON: Legacy is promising to be a visual feast. They even had a 23 minute preview a little while back to prove to us all that it would be a visual feast. Having seen it, I can assure you it is both a visual and aural (if you like that kind of thing) feast… I’d say a few more thing about Avatar and TRON: Legacy but since this ain’t the review though I’ll leave it there. I did a little feature on it recently so have a look here to read more about it.

Other films releasing this week…

Catfish – As I already mentioned, I’m desperate to not know too much about this indie documentary. All I know is that it’s supposed to be good and the beginning of the blurb on IMDb.com which says “In late 2007, filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sensed a story unfolding as they began to film the life of Ariel’s brother…”.

Ok, I know two other things. As I mentioned at the top, there’s some controversy over whether it’s a real or a fake documentary. And I also know it’s something to do with online. Which, obviously, I’m interested in. So I’m planning on seeing it on Tuesday, I’ll let you know on the ol’ twitter or facebook page if it’s worth a look. Till then I shall be looking away every time I see the word “Catfish” anywhere.

Unsurprisingly for a documentary, Catfish is on limited release. You can catch it in the IFI in Temple Bar or in Light House Cinema in Smithfield.

Actually… it feels a bit slack only talking about three films, I haven’t really given you much choice. So, here’s another for ya. The Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), is screening in the IFI until at least Thursday, 2pm and 6.40pm. I’ve never seen it… I know, for shame, but I’m planning on popping along on Tuesday to rectify that issue. You can book tickets from the IFI bookings site here.

That’s it for this week. Hope you don’t spend all the week running around like mad things buying Christmas presents… try to get to the cinema at some point!

TRON: Legacy, Burlesque, Catfish and It’s A Wonderful Life are all in Irish cinemas from Friday 17th December 2010.

Splice was one of those films that sounded interesting enough to take note of but not interesting enough to actually find out any more about it. Cross bred mutants? In my head it had fallen into the Species category… could be interesting but more likely to turn out crap.

This has meant that, in some weird messed up way, I was quite happy with Splice. Kind of. It’s kinda like being happy about eating coal because it doesn’t taste like dog shit. It’s a good thing… but you’re not exactly going to jump for joy.

Just in case you have no idea what I’m talking about, Splice is about two scientists working in a pharmaceutical company who create an all new gene-spliced life form using human DNA. That part’s fine, good solid sci-fi topic which everyone can understand; moral dilemma, scientific advancement vs. ethics, money vs. social responsibility. All well and good. And obviously, genetic engineering is a hot-button topic at the moment. I’m cool with that. I love those kinds of films. But Splice never quite makes it to the heady heights of moral debate.

That’s the basic problem with Splice. I get the feeling that it thinks it’s was a bit heavier than it is… it never quite crosses the boundary from schlock-horror over to meaningful discussion of the topic. Now, to be fair, I’m not entirely sure if it was meant to because every time they look like they’re going that way they veer off in some other direction… but I have to imagine it did mean to. If it thought it was a B-grade splatter horror then there should have been a hell of a lot more splatter.

Never mind though, if you can accept what you’re getting then it’s not really that bad. That really is the best I can say about. It’s pretty much exactly what I thought about the other Vincenzo Natali films I’ve seen, Cube (which he also wrote) and Cypher. Half way there. Those films were better though, Splice verges a little too far into the ridiculous for me to really recommend it everyone. In particular, there were one of two crucial scenes that, in my opinion, were a little too shoe-horned in. They should have been able to flow far more naturally into them. Oh well, I guess they did what they could.

Despite that, personally, I did enjoy it… a bit. Aside from those scenes I can’t point anything that sticks out as particularly wrong with it. Those scenes themselves are ok, they don’t ruin the film and in general… the acting is fine, it looks reasonable, it’s not particularly boring… it’s just…. not as good as it should be. For me, I liked the ideas behind it. I guess I’m just sucker for sci-fi, even if the ideas aren’t particularly well dealt with, I’ll be happy watching them unfold. However creakily.

I suppose part of me is just annoyed that it wasn’t brilliant and I’m being slightly harsh on it because of that. I think it had some genuinely original ideas in it. No mean feat in a subject which has been so throughly debated. It could have been great and, to be honest it wasn’t really that far off the mark. But it was definitely off.

Bottom line is though, if you’re looking for a decent scary horror flick, don’t bother. If you’re thinking there might be a good examination of the ethics of genetic engineering then guess what, there isn’t. If you’re looking for a bit of gore… well, there’s a bit of that, but it’s not really worth it… In fact, the only reason I would give for anyone to go and see this film is if you’re a fan of David Cronenberg. In that case you might find it kind of interesting to see another take on the genre he perfected. I am a fan of Cronenberg… so… I think it was kind of worth seeing. Well, I don’t regret seeing it anyway so… that’s got to count for something…. right?

If you have seen it, let me know what you think – I know I’m being somewhat non-committal in this review so I’d love to hear from anyone who did really like it. Or anyone who hated it. I’m not fussy.

5.5/10