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I will tell you, as I told my wife when we exited the theater on Sunday after seeing the new film Battle: Los Angeles, that this film was “moto-boner food”. Yes, a delectable snack for your moto-boner to feast off of and gain energy greater than even the largest BFC Monster could offer.
I read no reviews going into the film, I knew they would be resoundingly negative–as most high-budget sci-fi films are. Ebert was rather harsh, I felt, giving said film only half a star. As he put it:
“Battle: Los Angeles” is noisy, violent, ugly and stupid. Its manufacture is a reflection of appalling cynicism on the part of its makers, who don’t even try to make it more than senseless chaos. Here’s a science-fiction film that’s an insult to the words “science” and “fiction,” and the hyphen in between them. You want to cut it up to clean under your fingernails.
And that’s just the first paragraph!
My feelings toward the film weren’t nearly as biting. I feel like as Marines, we automatically appreciate any film that does us some good light, and Battle: Los Angeles does this well. This is where I felt Battle: Los Angeles succeeds–it’s relatively realistic portrayal of modern Marines. Aaron Eckhart was a good choice to play a typical hard-ass hollywood Marine–though I didn’t quite get how he was retiring as a Staff Sergeant (he said he’d been in for 20 years). He was apparently awarded for whatever awful incident happened in Afghanistan, so we had no reason to believe he had been busted down.
Outside of this though, I had two main small gripes–the fact that they kept referring to the FOB (Forward Operating Base) as the “F.O.B.” (eff-oh-bee). I suppose there may have been some kind of Asian misunderstanding–but in real life, we say “fob”. The second being their dispersion in the beginning alley scene, which any infantry Marine can testify was beyond absurd.
Otherwise, the film was really what I expected a movie called “Battle: Los Angeles” to be. It was a battle, and it took place in Los Angeles. There were aliens, there were Marines, things got fucked up. I actually appreciated the complete lack of a coherent story–I mean come on, why waste our time? No one needed to fall in love, no kids needed to kick a velociraptor out a window with her gymnastics skills, and no one needed to explain why the aliens were there. If you were going into Battle: Los Angeles expecting something thought provoking, I encourage you to learn to read movie titles.
That said, the film was complete boner-food. Food for your boner. Specifically, your moto-boner. It will get you hard, jerk you off, and even cup the balls. Oorah?
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