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"Seeking to channel the chaotic urgency of Cloverfield with the gung-ho spirit of Independence Day, Battle: Los Angeles  instead feels like watching a monotonous &amp;#039;shoot-em-up&amp;#039; video game being played by someone else. Despite sporadic moments of visceral excitement and a determined performance by Aaron Eckhart, the movie is bogged down with a procession of uninspired scenarios and insultingly contrived &amp;#039;characters&amp;#039; who walk around spouting lines like some action movie random clich\u00C3\u00A9 generator. At times, it makes a Michael Bay production look highbrow. But why lambast an explosion-packed alien invasion movie for its stodgy characterisation, you may ask. After all, this is meant to be escapist cinema not Ken Loach. Well, blame the scriptwriters for these fully justified criticisms; for the opening chunk of the movie subjects us to a plethora of stale introductory scenes that try to introduce us to the various &amp;#039;lambs to the slaughter&amp;#039; soldiers prior to them being thrown into battle against the extraterrestrial invaders. A better creative choice would have been to either treat them as pure cattle or throw us straight into the heart of the battle with no prior involvement with their one-dimensional walking carcasses. The desperation to coerce us into investing in their fates is pathetic, with one being seen kissing his heavily pregnant wife on the belly and another at the graveside of his dead brother. All accompanied by a schmaltzy score and ridiculously shaky camerawork during mundane scenes of dialogue. Pass the sickbag please usherettes!  Yet for a brief period, the movie begins to take shape as Eckhart&amp;#039;s commanding officer mobilises his troops in Los Angeles to save a bunch of civilians who have been trapped by the bombardment of the recently landed aliens. They have barely three hours to contain the as-yet unseen and seemingly indestructible invaders before a full-scale strike that will raze LA to the ground. Intrigue and focus - game on! Sadly though, the battle sequences between the two sides are a motion-sickness inducing mess that makes it hard to work out which of the ciphers is being wounded, while the jarringly premature grand reveal of the foes results in an uninspired creature that resembles a Lidl version of the Independence Day bugs. Even an autopsy scene of an ET fails to create any sense of wonder, although it does generate some sympathy towards the actual live specimen as its tentacles flap around while the humans yank out its vital organs. Poor bugger. More shoot-outs ensue, accompanied by overly-sentimental scenes of self-sacrifice (&amp;#039;please pass this letter to my beloved wife&amp;#039; \u00E2\u20AC\u201C bleurgh!), an annoying kid and a mandatory appearance by an extremely huggable dog amidst the carnage. There&amp;#039;s also plenty of repellent military badge-kissing, with lines like, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d go to hell and back for you Sir&amp;quot;. Eckhart&amp;#039;s engaging, stiff-jawed grit at least serves as a binding factor to keep the shambles from falling apart, although a traumatic incident in his past is painfully shoehorned into the narrative and is reminiscent of Robert Hays&amp;#039;s character&amp;#039;s amusing backstory in the spoof comedy Airplane. Nonetheless, there are still hopes for a decent grand finale as one wonders just how the invasion can be thwarted. That is until the plot dictates that the aliens turn into vulnerable figures that can be easily picked off rather than the durable, all-conquering enemy that is encountered beforehand. Oh well. At least Battle: Los Angeles can&amp;#039;t be accused of being inconsistent. For its style and substance are both equally flawed - with its inane attempts at characterisation finding a perfect match in camerawork that often lacks any clarity or coherence. The mercifully smooth-flowing pacing of the story and wise focus on a solitary group of humans in just one location simply can&amp;#039;t conquer such insurmountable obstacles. The real battle in this duff alien invasion movie is whether the direction is worse than the writing.  &amp;gt; What do you think of the movie? Share your views "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a308527/battle-los-angeles/>