Friday, April 27, 2012

Lock Me Up!: Battle OF Los Angeles

'Of' is the key word here, folks!  You can't buy subtlety like you get from an Asylum film.  For the record, I liked Battle: Los Angeles.  It was loud and full of explosions, but a good amount of character work and drama was worked into it.  It's not super-awesome, but it's a good film.  This film...not so much.  The film is based more around the original 'Battle of Los Angeles' headline from the 1940s.  If you're not familiar with it..., you're not alone.  Seriously, this is only a marginally-famous thing- mostly to History buffs.  So why build a movie around it?  To avoid lawsuits, obviously.  'We're not ripping-off the famous film release- we're just doing a film about the Historical non-story.'  Who's the big star here?  Why it's Kel, of Keenan and Kell fame.  They were on Nickelodeon.  Keenan, meanwhile, is on Saturday Night Live.  This joke writes itself really.  To find out more about this film, read on...
The movie is pretty similar in certain ways.  For example, Kell plays a guy like Eckhart's.  Nice.
The most important aspect of the film is that the soldiers work together to stop the enemy.
Now here's the stuff that's different....
*****
This guy shows up from the alien ship.  He appears to be a WWII-era pilot lost during the original non-attack.
 ...but he's actually a Robot sent by the aliens.  Yeah, that's logical and not silly in any way.
Speaking of the Aliens, this thing represents the main creature in the Mothership.  That's...just wow.  Mass Effect this is not.
Will our heroes save the day?  Will the world...or, rather, Los Angeles be doomed?  Only time- and the movie- will tell.  The End.
Evil aliens beware- we have the other guy from a Nickelodeon show!  Seriously, this movie is not that good.  The scope is about what you'd expect.  It's an Asylum film, so it's in Los Angeles.  I'd make a joke about them never going somewhere else, but I saw Allan Quartermain and the Temple of Skulls.  That movie was shot in South Africa...and sucked ass.  Anyhow, this film is about Los Angeles being attacked by a stationery spaceship in the center of the city.  This would be notable, if giant robots hadn't already done this in The Day The Earth Stopped.  Hell, a lot of the locations you'll see in this film are also in Transmorphers: Fall of Man, a film I'm covering tomorrow.  Who's surprised?  The film has some odd characters and just makes some odd choices.  One character is a General who gets tossed away from a giant explosion.  He shows up later, however, and is barely-scathed.  A few scenes later, he is blown away by an explosion...and dies.  What was the point of not killing him the first time?!?  There are a bunch of silly moments to enjoy here, provided that you enjoy Asylum films in all of their cheesy non-glory.  What do you think, Random Robot Guy?
Next up, the prequel to a pretty infamous Asylum film.  I'd do that one...but this sounds funnier.  Stay tuned...

2 comments:

  1. Good review. There's a lot wrong with "Battle of Los Angeles" but that girl in it - whose name I can't remember anymore, was pretty good looking and... that's about it.

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  2. I really need to watch this. I hated... HATED the original - maybe I like this more? :)

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