"You're looking at a Boeski, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever."

"If the police don't defend us, maybe we ought to do it ourselves."

"Outlaws wear black. Fags and cocaine dealers wear white."

"Can't cut anyone's balls off with trimmers now, can I?"

Battle: Los Angeles

Well goddamn, it's been near two years since we've updated last, but this year's rush of summer flicks is officially here, so we figured it's a good time to get off our asses and plop down in those sticky theater seats..

This summer brings with it a record amount of sequels/remakes: twenty fucking seven, up from twenty-four from 2003 [LOTR: Return of the King took home the Oscar for Best Picture lolz]. That being said, we were hoping Battle: Los Angeles [does anyone know what the official title of this fucking movie is?!] was going be to one of the few fairly original flicks to release in 2011. But we sort of forgot this movie was being touted as a "Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day" action flick for over a year now. Woops. But hey, we love Ridley Scott, Will Smith, militainment, alien motherships, and a little Jeff Goldblum never hurt anyone, right?

The beginning of Battle: LA [??] has a slightly effective front bookend to setup the entire film: August 12, 2011 is the day Los Angeles and the entire planet is attacked by an unknown combatant. The quickstart skips a lengthy setup a la Emmerich's opus and abruptly throws us onto a CH-53 transport with a bunch of Marines freaking out, unidentified objects are making crazy donut clouds in atmo, and Aaron "I make my own luck" Eckhart looks like someone shit in his cereal. But just as quickly as everything spooled up, we're timestamped 24 hours prior to "contact."

Now personally I'm a big fan of using this technique to establish a sense of urgency or clarify where the hell we are in the world [Spy Game!!], but it's easy to over do it for no reason whatsoever. We never leave Santa Monica for two hours and there aren't that many characters to keep track of, on top of the fact that the time/textstamps are used haphazardly. By the time the third act hits, Marines are dropping left and right and it's quite difficult to tell if "Ruiz" or "Harris" or "Guerrero" just took a round to the face and I don't think the viewer needs to be told repeatedly that our Marine unit is trying to get back to their "Forward Operating Base or F.O.B."

That aside, the 24 hour jump in time allows us to get a nice little glimpse at our main players before they're deployed in two weeks. Not surprisingly, the cast is made up of the usual suspects: one Marine Lieutenant is a soon to be father and this is his first time leading a squad into combat, "damn I look good in Marine issue corrective lenses" Ne-Yo is about to get hitched, some rookie who can't hold his booze when in the company of San Diego golf course skanks worries about whether he has what it takes to be a Marine, and Harvey Two-Face realizes he's an old fart with bad knees and is ready to say goodbye to the Marine Corps after returning from Iraq having lost a few of his men. And then aliens attack and the shit hits the proverbial fan.

All things considered this was a great action flick. True it had a funky start, but it balanced character development, didn't go overboard with the CG [Read: Skyline], and the combat sequences are top notch. Sound design was also well done. Stalker alien clicking noises [no, not like a predator goddamn it] was creepy as hell. Unfortunately, this movie could not decide on a cinematic style; one second it uses BSG-style zooms for dramatic effect, then you're POV-ing through a firefight in a suburban neighborhood, or you're staring down an ACOG-scope through a smokey alley at Glenn-the-dog. A little more consistency would have been nice; more than once I was concerned more about how many Sour Patch Kids I was down to as opposed to how our heroes were going to survive. Also, Michelle Rodriguez looks good in digital camo.

Once you have a better grasp that this flick is more Black Hawk Down than ID4 with a hint of Cloverfield and Saving Private Ryan to boot, you're good to go. Battle chooses not to focus on aliens attacking or why [this is simply a narrative setup], but rather on the Marines themselves and how they respond to a faceless invader intent on world annihilation. If you aren't a fan of fun action chockfull of predictable Marine jargon ["Toss me another mag! Make it count!" "First in, last out!" Hoorah!" "I'll see you on the beach!" Oop.. maybe not that last one..] go check out Mars Needs Moms instead.

One final tidbit we took away from today's adventure: We were not expecting Battle Los Angeles [??] to be such a Marine recruitment film; I mean it's not as bad as the Transformers franchise, but damn do they make the Marines look badass; quite possibly another product of the Hollywood/American Armed Forces Propaganda Machine. Semper Fi. And with that…

1. Have aliens never heard of flak guns before?

2. Can Michael "I love to racism, bro!" Pena really shoot an M4 like a boss?

3 Are Abrams tanks really that ineffective against alien threats?

4. Was that moneyshot joke really necessary?