Of all the by-committee studio films vying for the attention of consumers at the San Diego Comic Con this year, Jonathan Liebesman's BATTLE: LOS ANGELES seemingly stands apart. It isn't a sequel/remake/reboot, it's not based on a comic book (or any other pre-existing material) and it isn't a star vehicle. Perhaps this is why so many people were buzzing about the film going into yesterday's Sony panel in the hangar-sized Hall H; in today's mainstream marketplace, it's refreshing to engage with something that isn't 100% pre-sold. Studio's don't often trust audiences to take a chance on the unknown. So... rejoice?
Borrowing the hand-held aesthetic used to harrowing effect by Ridley Scott in BLACK HAWK DOWN (which drew heavily on Gillo Pontecorvo's BATTLE OF ALGIERS), Liebesman's BATTLE: LOS ANGELES looks like it could be one hell of a video game. From the opening shots of the pacific coast being shelled from above by unseen alien warships (which also seem to be targeting a fleet of military helicopters carrying the soldiers with whom we'll be thrust into battle), the Liebesman is clearly doing everything he can to reinvigorate the alien invasion movie. Rather than obsessing on the destruction of well-known landmarks (ala Roland Emmerich), Liebesman depicts the assault as a brutal shock-and-awe campaign brought to our shores: skyscrapers and homes are indiscriminately reduced to CG rubble; meanwhile, the army scrambles to identify the enemy combatants and formulate some kind of a counterattack.
The invasion is linked to the infamous "Battle of Los Angeles", the 1942 anti-aircraft flurry that lit up the skies over the city for reasons that still aren't clear. Christopher Bertolini's screenplay asserts that this barrage was in fact provoked by hostile alien spaceships - and now the bastards are back with lots more firepower.
After the opening raid, we jump forward to an urban warfare sequence in which soldiers (led by star Aaron Eckhart) find themselves slugging it out with aliens in a residential neighborhood. It's door-to-door fighting right out of BLACK HAWK DOWN, and Liebesman has filmed it all with a surfeit of bombast and brio. The cool thing about this set piece is that we never fully glimpse the aliens; they're always scampering out of frame or obscured by a tree branch as the camera tries to keep tabs on the unfolding action. I'm not much of a gamer, but the way this sequence is shot reminds me of RESISTANCE. It's not mind-blowingly brilliant stuff, but it's effective.
It's impossible to make a judgment call based on eight or ten minutes of unfinished footage, but BATTLE: LOS ANGELES looks like it could offer up a fun spin on the played-out alien invasion genre. We'll find out if Liebesman's got the goods on March 11, 2011.
