Movie: Battle Los Angeles (2011)

Battle Los Angeles is one of those sci-fi movies I would have liked to see on a big screen when it was released but didn't really inspire me to make sure I did.

Plus it stars Aaron Eckhart, who irritates me for some reason in most movies. I don't know why? I wasn't his biggest fan in The Dark Knight. He's actually a very good actor in the right film and Battle Los Angeles definitely agrees with him. At least I wasn't irritated by him when I caught the movie on free to air TV tonight.

Being a long time sci-fi fan what caught my eye about this film is that it's an alien invasion movie. Sure you've probably seen it all before but the design of the aliens and their spacecraft seemed fairly unique to anything I'd seen before. In that department it didn't disappoint.

Although the actual aliens reminded me a lot of those from the Alien Movies their armor, space craft and other tech was all pretty impressive.

The movies plot is fairly straight forward. A unit of soldiers are pitted against the entire alien force (well the Los Angeles chapter at least) and must work out how to save the planet. Along the way the troops learn a thing or two about trust and loyalty, whilst the staff sergeant (Eckhart) earns redemption from his tragic past.

This movie's biggest strength is also something of a weakness. It deals with the whole situation in a very realistic way that makes the film seem like a typical war movie where the enemy just happens to be aliens. You never see the battle from the alien's point of view or learn anything about them that the soldiers don't learn for themselves. It's pretty fast paced with lots of shaky cam that must have made cinema goers a little bit nauseous.

I did appreciate all the realism and fast pace but it comes at the expense of never really getting to know any of the characters very well. You get glimpses here and there into each soldiers life but it's not enough to get you to care about them.

It's not really a spoiler to tell you that some of the troops don't make it in a war film. The thing is I never cared about those that didn't make it. In fact I wasn't even sure who it was that died in some scenes. If the script had managed to get me to care about every soldier in the unit, in the same way that Eckhart's character did, it could have been a great movie instead of just a good film.

The ending is a little bit of a let down for how the whole alien invasion is resolved but it really couldn't be helped, in a movie about one military unit's involvement in a worldwide alien invasion.

I can't really fault this movie other than it wasn't able to get me caring about the characters on anything but a surface level. Aside from that, it's well worth a look in, and I'd buy it for my DVD collection too.

Comments

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de

Skateboard Trick Tips: Two Ways to Ollie North (Ollie One foot)

You have to be quick to see my Ollie Norths! Ollie One Foots, otherwise known as the Ollie North, is one of those skateboard tricks you learn and then tend not to do very much as more interesting trick challenges grab your attention. However it does look really cool if you learn how to kick your front foot well past the nose of your skateboard. Still shot from Braille Skateboarding's Ollie North tutorial. I was inspired to make my video below, showing two different techniques to achieve a successful Ollie One Foot, when I not only saw that Braille Skateboarding's Tutorial used a different method to the one I had learned but also, when I looked at various other video tutorials, I discovered yet another technique, with no one using the method I had originally learned. Braille's method is to simply Ollie and drag your front foot past the front of your board. The second method I came across in several video tutorials is to Ollie, drag your front foot and tap your

Celtic Festival, Kapunda 2007

My first visit to Kapunda, Australia's oldest mining town, was to experience one day of a three day event, the 32nd Annual Kapunda Celtic Festival. Blonde Rose and I attended the second day which was a Saturday. As far as Celtic Festivals go, this one had a Celtic flavor but my impression overall was that this could have easily have been a Town Festival. Largely because many of the market stalls and some of the performing artists weren't specifically 'Celtic' themed. That said, I didn't get to see all of the Celtic performing artists such as dancers, singers and more. Perhaps if I had I would've been left with more of a Celtic experience. Don't get me wrong, I was not disappointed with the festival at all. Kapunda is an exceptional town with a lot to see. Which is why I didn't see all the entertainment. Too busy looking in local art galleries and exploring the excellent basement Kapunda history display at the Visitor Centre, as well as the basement mu

The Braille Skateboarding App - How it Changed My Mind on Switch Skating

My Profile on the Braille Skateboarding App. Braille Skateboarding launched it's new Skateboarding App worldwide on November 23rd, 2020. About a month prior to that they did a 'soft launch' via email for anyone living in Australia. I'm guessing this was to give the app a final test in the real world before launching it proper. Rather than explain what it is, watch Aaron Kyro, founder of Braille Skateboarding, run you through the app in the launch video below. In a nutshell the app is virtually everything Braille has to offer accessed right from your phone, from tutorials to the Braille Army Community. The app is free but you can unlock more features if you upgrade to a paid membership. Braille App Trick List. One of the apps unique free features is keeping track of the tricks you've learned and giving you an overall score so you have some way to measure your progression. There is an extensive list of tricks, covering all types of skateboarding, categorized by diff

A Practical History of How The New World Order is a Global Cycle and Where We Are Now According to Ray Dalio

Still from Animation, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio When you hear the term 'The New World Order' which is somewhat interchangeable these days with 'The Great Reset' your mind may tend to wander to global conspiracy theories and The World Economic Forum (who I've previously established as so evil they don't even hide what they're doing). While I don't put much stock in what people think the WEF is doing (as opposed to what it actually is doing) there is such a thing as 'The New World Order' that can be demonstrated as a reoccurring construct of change throughout history. Ray Dalio , the founder, co-Chief Investment Officer and co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates , which is a global macro investment firm and is the world’s largest hedge fund, is also connected to the WEF (so must be up to no good), has written a book, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order (Amazon Affiliate Link), in which he

How to Start From Nothing - a Video by Sorelle Amore Finance About Starting Any Kind of Business

Sorelle Amore. It's the million dollar question for many people wanting to start a business who feel they don't have the knowledge, money, skills, time, or all four, "How do I start from nothing?" If that's something you want to know too then the video below by Sorelle Amore , an Australian photographer and social media entrepreneur success story, who is most known for literally writing the book on how to take an #AdvancedSelfie, has an answer well worth considering. Just in case you feel advice from a professional selfie photographer couldn't possibly be meaningful Sorelle's journey to financial freedom in just two years is well worth looking into. One takeaway for me is that at age 28 she was broke, but turned things around and was a millionaire by age 30. While that's an exceptional result of quite a lot of hard work, writing books, building courses, and more, what it says to me is, it's possible to be financially secure in less than two years

Discussion Retrospective.

One of the oddities of internet forums is that discussions can be preserved long after the interest of the participants is over. My partner and I met up with some online forum friends recently at a local restaurant. Most of them we've known for years but hadn't met in person until now. At this event I was reminded by two people about a forum discussion that I remember having but couldn't for the life of me remember the actual details of what I'd said. However, it must have been profound and informative because three people recalled it and at least one had thought it interesting enough to copy the discussion and show it to people not involved with the forum. I still couldn't remember the exact details despite the subject being a pet topic of mine. Afterwards I went home and looked up this discussion on the forum. It took a little bit of finding because it was buried in the archives. Turns out this was a discussion that took place nearly two years ago. No wonder I

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog