BATTLE: LOS ANGELES: A War on the Nervous System

The act of watching BATTLE: LOS ANGELES is a nauseating experience. At times, it is aggressively nauseating. According to Director Jonathan Liebesman’s BIO, he studied filmmaking at NYU and the AFDA, but minutes into the film, it becomes abundantly clear that he must have graduated with honors from the School of ADHD. Hyperactive, with the inability to focus and like the neurobehavioral developmental disorder of the same name, it is a chronic disturbance that impairs the film and seems likely an irreversible trend to continue in contemporary filmmaking (as it does in reality TV programming). Lukas Ettlin’s camera-in-a-blender cinematography lacks a purpose and seems like it is constantly trying to find something on which to focus - - and I DARE him or the filmmakers to publically produce a working shot list.

Coupled with the advent of the Avid and other non-linear digital-editing technologies, B-roll and camera coverage has put a strangle-hold on the one-take style of filmmaking that easily translates to a filmmaker having no faith in his or her material. It seems ironic that Ettlin, a native of Switzerland that has a world-renowned position on neutrality, was chosen to lens such a film about extraterrestrial beings obliterating the major cities of Earth in order to harvest its water supply. This irresolute shooting style even continues in the newsreel footage that the characters watch on their respective television sets which include quick zooms and pans amid incomprehensible close-up shots and never for once seems to utilize one of the most sacred devices in a DP’s toolkit: a tripod. In the filmmakers’ defense, all of the Tripods were decimated in Steven Spielberg’s WAR OF THE WORLDS. The film’s ‘You Are There’ experience in which it pits you seems as if it’s nothing more than a recruitment video for the United States Marine Corps, which like Paul Verhoeven’s STARSHIP TROOPERS, is a sci-fi film of war with deceptive overtones of propaganda. 116 minutes later, the only place in which I wanted to enlist was my local drugstore for a Tylenol. Thankfully, however, my immunity for such cinematic trivialities is as impenetrable as a bulletproof vest.

Likely confusing is the film’s moniker - - BATTLE: LOS ANGELES - - when the film takes place primarily in Santa Monica, CA. It’s not until the last shot of the film that military choppers actually make a beeline toward downtown Los Angeles proper! Technically, it should’ve been dubbed BATTLE: WESTERN LOS ANGELES COUNTY, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have satisfied focus groups and didn’t seem cool enough a title. More appropriate a title would’ve been simply BATTLE: LA since 90% of it was shot in Shreveport and Baton Rouge, LA. Luckily for Lieutenant Corporal Peter Kerns (Jim Parrack) who is also a featured character in HBO’s “True Blood” in (fictional) Bon Temps, LA, he didn’t have to travel very far - - physically and in acting chops - - from his likeably, simple-minded and good-hearted persona of Hoyt Fortenberry. Kerns, like Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) and Technical Sergeant Elena Santos (Michelle Rodriguez) should each be praised for their ability to stand out from all of the visual clutter in which they’re immersed and be somewhat ingratiating.

Regarding the rules of contemporary film-viewing, even if we do see Nantz perform two, successively rapid sit-ups and push-ups (in extreme close-up), after an appropriate suspension of disbelief, we’re to believe he actually did achieve twenty or more reps (or else, once again, an actor was saved through the magic of editing). With his chiseled features and positive work ethic, I do believe he accomplished a hearty workout regimen. And after witnessing the cast in their various lines of duty, although her spoken dialogue is as wooden as a mighty Oak, I’d rather be shadowing Sergeant Santos for her skilled directness and attention-to-detail in the field of battle. Her fellow soldiers (and the filmmakers) unfortunately take their cues from their successful and more highly ranked predecessors (in order of plagiarism): ALIENS, CLOVERFIELD, INDEPENDENCE DAY, DISTRICT 9, WAR OF THE WORLDS (all versions), STARSHIP TROOPERS and PREDATOR in terms of:

• inter-group rapport with intensely-used and repetitive military slang;
• over-the-shoulder documentation of the unfolding events in a war-torn landscape;
• alien beings that are both lanky, lean and often hybridized with artillery capable of firing various types (at varying speeds) of ammo;
• engagement in ground-to-air and air-to-air (dogfight) combat involving drone-like vehicles and force fields on enemy warship(s) and corresponding craft;
• inspecting the multi-layered innards of alien beings in order to understand its compositional makeup;
• discovering a nemeses’ Achilles heel and sharing the vulnerability with others still alive in the human network in order to ‘spread the word’ and ‘take them down’.

"Hey, Bra, don'tcha think we should pack it in?"

(To evacuate the Pacific Ocean/Gulf of Mexico or not to evacuate?)

In these instances, BATTLE: LOS ANGELES is neither vital entertainment nor a relaxing one to enjoy. Why do filmmakers insist on crafting films that are not only a chore to watch, but as detrimental to one’s optical nerves as they are on one’s nervous system? Contrasted with the film that popularized the trend in hand-held cinematography, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was like staring at a slightly skewed picture postcard in which its imagery did not seem randomized and was an enjoyable experience in horror. Having seen both a leaked version of the film phenomenon online and in the theatre, I much preferred the grainy and degraded online version that enhanced the contextual horror of not being able to comfortably see or anticipate what (unseen) demons lurked in the characters’ midst. In its blend of color and black and white sequences, the camera that each character holds, is like a virtual extension of one’s eye - - it doesn’t zoom in and zoom out whilst panning simultaneously to upset the viewer’s equilibrium like in Liebesman’s film. One thing I learned from the CITIZEN KANE school of filmmaking is that where there is a lack of depth of field, there is assuredly a lack of depth (of ideas and imagination).

Why all this zoom in, zoom out, pan right, pan even more right poppycock in scenes such as in the flower shop when a soldier is selecting flowers for his nuptials; or when the soldiers are celebrating on a midnight beer-binge or even when a mortally wounded civilian is lying on the floor of a convenience store as he sits on death’s door step? You’d think that more compassion would be paid to a character in a sequence that absolutely requires it - - sure, just keep whipping that camera lens around to induce a headache more so than tears. Not even the potential elements paying homage to Howard Hawks’ RIO BRAVO where Nantz and his marines hole themselves up with a batch of civilians in the Santa Monica Police Department against the invading alien marauders or John Ford’s STAGECOACH when the soldiers navigate their steel wagon commuter bus through an enemy alien warpath can save a film that is already fubar.

Corpsman Jibril Adukwu (Adetokumboh M'Cormack) remarks, “I’d rather be in Afghanistan”. That’s the spirit, brother! (Sarcasm.) What’s tragic about a film in the current military climate where unrest often (and as of this review, currently) resides in nations around the globe, the last thing you want to hear crossing a soldier’s lips is a disregard for the military duty for which he signed up and shirk his responsibilities - - especially when the alien nemeses they’re facing aren’t terribly menacing. They don’t bleed or expel acid. They don’t control humans with their minds. In fact, the film purports that they are just as organic and have a penchant for body armor as do their human targets.

And with all the firepower and military training at their disposal, even ‘Newt’ (Carrie Henn) in James Cameron’s ALIENS showed more cojones than were exhibited by those in Nantz’s platoon - - in addition to using the Almighty’s name in vain during moments of high tension nearly three dozen times and engaging in personal politics with a superior officer that is not only worthy of being court-martialed, but disrespectful to one’s elders. If I may be so bold and act as my own appointed court martial, I find the defendant, BATTLE: LOS ANGELES, for all of the aforementioned, GUILTY and sentenced directly-to-video, followed by the obligatory video game tie-ins and unnecessary sequels to further numb the minds of gamers and promote a harvest of new, unsuspecting recruits to War.