BATTLE: LOS ANGELES

BATTLE: LOS ANGELES: (Rated PG-13 for moderate profanity, war-related action & violence):  Reminds me, a good dish wiper can make up for a shoddy dish washer.

Christopher Bertolini's shoddy script which borrows from just about every war movie about invasions, war confrontations, and saving society, from "All Quiet on the Western Front" to "Blackhawk Down," has been carefully put to thrilling use by director Jonathan Liebesman (credits go back to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"!) - backed by Greg & Colin Strause's visual effects and, especially, Bryan Tyler's never ending, pulsating music (the vibrations actually felt as well as heard), along with a strong cast - almost turn this otherwise overly familiar material into nearly two hours of suspenseful action.

About to retire from the Marine Corps, Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is retained to back up a fresh Lieutenant Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez), when it is realized that, not a barrage of meteors, but aliens from outer space, are attacking the world, city by city. Los Angeles is the last bastion of confrontation; save it and you save the world.  From then on, with a hefty bag of updated tech effects on hand we maneuver through the city - weapons firing, bombs wreaking destruction, fires blazing, people shouting & ducking among the debris - rebuffing the attacks, at first from a distance, then closer until the battle is at times hand to tentacle - while above and around great complicated ships congregate, dive, split into marauding groups, and, in general, create non-stop havoc underground, on the surface, and in the air.

All this time our sergeant and his gradually diminishing group heroically struggle to bring a band of civilians to safety.  There are even little tykes to save and a brave female to help out.

Liebesman stated in an interview that the inspiration for this movie was a rumored attack on the city in 1942 - supposedly from Japan, but with possibilities that it might have been from outer space.  Well, maybe, but what we have here is an ongoing series of clichés (shot incidentally in Louisiana for practical reasons): - with all the acts from bravery to cowardice, from "Porkchop Hill" to  "Saving Pvt Ryan"- the action crawling steadily forward to the final climactic,  and very explosive conclusion.  Sound familiar?

Most of the dialog is traditional and as in most battle scenes terse:  "Ya gotta be brave!"  "Marines don't quit!"  "Don't worry; I didn't get this far on pure luck."  "I'm ready for payback."  "Hang in there; you're gonna be fine."  And the human touches:  Marine stops just long enough in their rush to carefully tie a little kid's shoelaces.

The film consists in documentary style of carefully controlled mayhem in a series of combat instances with bits of information tucked in, confrontation after confrontation.  They need our water; it's their life blood.  They wipe cities out, then colonize.  They can be destroyed by shooting into the chest.  And so on to the final shootout.

This is a time when being loud (nonstop) and fast (MTV edits) in a massive epic-style that numbs us down, its plotted parts become less interesting than the whole.
(Grade: B-)