[VANFLAMESFAN]

Just got back from a matinee. I can see why critics don't like it. It's a 2 hour video game. A 2 hour action scene.

As a movie, Battle LA is pretty bad. As a Alien Invasion movie, it's pretty cool. Does that make any sense??

It's got terrible dialogue. Just so cliche. I could have written better dialogue. There's just way too much chest pumping/America is great/Marine talk/hoo raaah kind of chat for my liking. It's got a pretty ordinary story. It's got very ordinary characters, just nothing we haven't seen before. And I think with a better, more experienced director, it could have been so much better.

But this is not like a Roland Emerich film. There's the odd cheesy one liner, but they're not littered throughout the movie. There's no annoying asthmatic little brat kid who realizes that his inhaler is a secret weapon. There's nothing ridiculous like that. There's no uploading of computer viruses to an enemy spaceship. There's no marine flying an alien craft better than the aliens.

There are some pretty intense scenes and the aliens are kind of a mix between a District 9 alien and a Transformer. They look reltively cool. Their weapons are not as bad ass as I would have liked, but still some pretty cool ships.

Like I said, as far as movies go, it's pretty ordinary. Maybe a 5 out of 10.

As far as alien invasion movies go, it's actually pretty good. This is not Independance Day or Skyline. It's nowhere near being that bad. But it's not even remotely close to being as good as District 9. Somewhere in between is where I would rank it. So let's say.... 6.5 out of 10.