Battle Los Angeles was disappointing
Went to see it last night......started off well but it fell into the abyss of cliches.
I wanted the aliens to be alot more sinister and scary, the movie lacked suspense. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it so I won't tell you what happens, but, man, I resent the $16.50 NZD I paid to see it thats for sure.
I wanted the aliens to be alot more sinister and scary, the movie lacked suspense. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it so I won't tell you what happens, but, man, I resent the $16.50 NZD I paid to see it thats for sure.
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Man, I resent you paying $16.50 NZD too. This so called "film" was a s**t storm from day one. It's got a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 34% for goodness sakes! It's upsetting to possess the knowledge that this turgid, sorry waste of celluloid made it to #1 at the box-office. Having said that, I'm glad that you acknowledge that the movie was sub-par at best: it's just a shame that the ticket sales couldn't reflect that.
I personally enjoyed it. It had some cool set pieces and the people who I wanted to see live at the end of the movie lived. Although, the movie doesn't really deal too much in character development. I mean, Aaron Eckhart's character was the only real fleshed out character so I did care about him but other than that the rest of them were just fillers. The aliens were unimpressive. Looked like a weird mix of star wars drones and the guys from halo.
Without giving too much away i would say that the film is average at best. There's really nothing new to be seen here as far as Alien invasion movies are concerned. Aside from Aaron's character there really isn't any devolepment there. The CGI is good but like Jim Vejvoda at ign said in a review of Sucker Punch, "In the age of ubiquitous CGI, do "cool visuals" still have enough pull to warrant recommending a fanboy-friendly movie? No, they don't and especially when there are video games whose visuals are just as cool and boast better stories to boot."
I tend to agree. CGI has come so far that it's stalled. CGI doesn't WOW anymore. It's the norm. Now, if they actually had built the ships and the aliens (like the life size dinosaurs of Jurassic Park) and had them look and move realistic then yes, I would have been impressed. But CGI, sorry... not impressive anymore.
I hate to say so many bad things about the film. I did enjoy it. But it's just nothing special.
Roger Ebert is hardly the Gospel, but on this occasion he is truly preaching from a wise place. Heed his words of warning, or forever endure an eternity of cinematic pap.
Ye have been warned.
Who needed to wait that long? All it took for me was the first five seconds of the trailer.
There is a line I misunderstood as "they're all dropping like boolean kids!" and that confused me, for the next few minutes I pondered that until I realised the line was "they're all dropping like bowling pins!"
I don't think it's worth a whole thread (or whatever they charge for it at the theatre... I wouldn't know, I wouldn't have gone as far as pay to watch it) but yeah, it sucked.
Yeh just wasnt what is was cracked up to be.
Speaking of which, it was because of Skyline that I actually have a lot higher opinion of Battle:LA than most seem to. Skyline had to be one of the extremely rare instances in my life where I actually felt like I had legitimately wasted my time/life away. So in comparison to that, Battle:LA was alright.
Skyline was written and directed by the Brothers Strause, of AVP: Reqiuem infamy. Of course it sucked harder than a vietnamese prostitute. In that respect I guess one could say that Battle: LA was the lesser of two evils.
Having said that, Jonathan Liebesman (the director of Battle: LA) was previously responsible for the cinematic pieces of excrement that were Darkness Falls and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, so I'd say that neither Skyline or Battle: LA come from a great pedigree. For what it's worth; I'd agree that Skyline is the more heinous of the two but both movies are colossal turkeys of Godzilla proportions.
I just can't get my head around why people would pay to watch either (I've seen both out of morbid curiosity but I certainly didn't pay for the privilege), don't people ever read reviews or look into a directors track record?! Actually scrap that, don't people have eyes and ears?! Two seconds of the trailer was more than enough to inform me of the serious lack of quality. Either there was an influx of 13 year old boys at the screenings or I truly worry for the intelligence of humanity.
I'm just wondering since I've been on the fence about it after seeing the trailer.
I hadn't been to the cinema since crappy Avatar, and I very rarely go at all because I know whatever movie I go see will end up being $hitter than I could of imagined.
But this week I was actually treating my partners son for his birthday, he is 13. Even he said it sucked. So really, I went because he wanted to see it.
Like I said, look at everything showing at cinemas now, its all CGI based crap.
Rotten Tomatoes is hardly the Gospel either. If I go on their I'll usually judge by one of the top ctitics review rather than the Tomatometer because most of the reviews are just a rating and no explanation. Now if you want to know if a film is good you look to David Stratten.
Rotten Tomatoes varies from movie to movie but in the case of Battle: LA there are several reviews that are spot on. Plus, aside from watching the movie myself, I've also watched a couple of my trusted reviewers on YouTube.
The simple fact is that the overall rating on Rotten Tomatoes tends to be overly lenient if anything, so when a movie on its database has a good amount of reviews and a rating of 34%, you know it's most likely garbage and at the very least no classic. Personal opinion and subjectivety aside.
It never mentioned UK getting attacked, prob because the aliens knew we would kick their arses. Lol.
However, I'm inclined to agree with his this time. Even tho his Battle LA review sucks, and all his reviews in general. He seriously has schizophrenia when it comes to reviewing movies.
Nah man its cool you like Battle LA. I was just disappointed by it...I expected more bang for my buck.
Roger Ebert always give crap reviews to great films and great reviews to crap films. LAME-O!!! Lol.
I don't like Ebert, he's a hack.
Well to be fair, the movie is loosely inspired by the ridiculous conspiracy theories that are out there regarding the real life Battle of LA incident that occured in 1942. I can't believe that I'm actually defending an aspect of Battle: LA!
Signs was even worse.
2001 - A Space Odyssey
Alien
Aliens
Alien 3 - The Assembly Cut
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
District 9
Enemy Mine
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Predator
The Thing
War of the Worlds
...to name but eleven.
I heartily endorse this list :cool:
EDIT: Owh I see, the original one.
I purposefully omitted dates from the films on my list as I didn't want to start some kind of squabble over which version of which film is best (with the exception of Alien 3 because the assembly cut is uniformly considered the superior version by a country mile) .
But yes, I was most definitely thinking of the 1953 version when I mentioned The War of the Worlds. That's just my personal preference though; character and plot over, well... Tom Cruise.
That's about right. I enjoyed all of those.
I would actually add Signs to the list. I personally though it was a great film. I liked it's very down to earth approach to the alien invasion. I also like the religion and family side of the story. I though it was very emotional. But that might just be me.
no man lol, I should of stated... I am yet to see a RECENT good alien flick. Oh yeh, District 9 was awesome, totally forgot about that movie. ok, thats one then.