Wow, it got CRUSHED by the reviewers. 
Some super cheeseball dialogue ( We already had breakfast) but still really good and INSANELY tense
Saw this on Sunday. It was pretty good. An interesting take on a alien invasion movie. Think War of the Worlds except it follows a Marine unit rather than some dope trying to get to Boston.
Also reminded me of some stuff discussed on GWC a while back, I forget for what. The idea that to the grunts on the ground, the larger politics and scale of what is going on is not always evident or important. In this movie, the larger issues of the invaders are not really important.
Saw this movie on Friday and found it to be thoroughly entertaining. Great action sequences with cool aliens and spacecraft. The dialogue was by no means Oscar-worthy but I don’t think it was horrible. There are some obvious similarities to movies like ID4 but I feel like Battle: LA is still worth seeing.
My only complaint is the camera work. It was shot with hand-held cameras and I found it to be too shaky in some of the slower sequences.
Overall, I felt like it was money well spent. My wife was hesitant to see this but in the end she liked it too. She described it as “ID4 but more serious.”
We chose the Adjustment Bureau for this weekend over Battle: LA and next weekend I’ll be in Texas, and then we must see Paul, so I am slightly concerned that I will end up missing this one. I can’t imagine that it’s worth seeing at home, sans 30 foot screen and awesome sound system. What do you all think–should I prioritize Battle: Los Angeles over Paul?
I dunno I enjoy Black Hawk Down at home and it’s a lot of the same feel. You could get away with watching it on dvd
Battle: LA was a fun movie and completely enjoyable even though I had 2 problems with it. The direction was TERRIBLE. I am fine with shaky-cam if used right (ala Bourne). You DON’T go shaky-cam during a slow section!!! You don’t. Overuse smoke without clear markers to make points of reference. And you definately need to decide before you make your movie if you are going to go for realism in your invasion movie and STICK WITH IT. Halfway through, the movie decides to cash in in it’s gritty opening acts to give a standard movie finale. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, but I now wonder what this movie would have been with a Neil Blomkamp, James Cameron or Ridley Scott directing.
I have a question, how would you think their technology uses water for fuel. A friend mentioned it could be cold fusion, but would that really work to make heat rays like what we see in this movie?
I agree on the shaky shake. It became a bit much. But I dont see the “standard movie ending”. [spoiler] they won ONE battle…aliens were still on earth, still killin’, still taking over [/spoiler]
I thought it was really good, as previously mentioned camera work, is a little off, dialog over the top, still had a great time liked the perspective. It really felt like black hawk down with aliens. All I know is it was a hell of a time. There was a few moments I felt like cheering.