Battle: Los Angeles Movie Review

Battle: Los Angeles takes place on earth in present day and stars Aaron Eckhart as a Marine who is just about to retire. He also has a bad tour of duty under his belt where some of his soldiers died while under his command. The same day that he signs his papers to make it all official, a sudden appearance of a group of meteors is announced to be heading to earth. Everyone comes to find out that these are not simply meteors, they are alien craft. One by one the enemy ships splash down off the coast of Los Angeles (and other cities around the planet too.. they just stick with LA) and shortly thereafter, the aliens start appearing... and shortly after that, start shooting.

The military is mobilized and sent in to try and battle an enemy that is obviously superior in technology.. everyone knows its going to be a tough if not possibly hopeless battle. Marines being Marines though are going to go in and do their jobs.. first ones in, last ones out. Eckhart's squad is sent in to try and rescue a group of civilians trapped in a police station behind enemy lines. They come under attack against the powerful foe and are lucky to come out of it with the limited number of causalities that they do. They eventually find the police station, picking up a few more soldiers on the way. A chopper is called in to rescue the injured and anyone else, while the civilians that were at the station are headed to the chopper it takes off as its been loaded to capacity. Shortly after take off the chopper is shot down, killing all aboard. From there on they are basically on there own, trying to make it back to a safe place.

This was actually a pretty decent movie as far as sci-fi action flicks go. It will remind a lot of people of Independence Day as it did me. Plenty of military type of action.. lots of shooting and explosions. Really for a sci-fi oriented movie though, there are not as many special effects as you might expect.. of course with the movie taking place in this day and age and entirely on the surface of the planet, there was no need for a bunch of outer space shots. I did find the representation of our military as being pretty on point as our troops, real or in the movies in this case. You'll cheer for them and in some cases, might even cry for them.

I'm going to give this movie a 8 1/2 out of 10!

Now available on DVD