Quickie: Battle: Los Angeles

Have you ever watched someone try to be "cool"? It's excruciating. Especially when it's a good friend. The wide smile that you know is really a grimace, the bead of sweat the belies how much effort is really going into trying to make all the right jokes or references. And because your on the outside looking in, you know that no one is buying it- but the horror show continues.

Battle: Los Angeles tries so hard. But where our sad friend above tried so hard to be cool, B:LA attempts desperately to be emotional. It's like Director Jonathon Liebesmen and writer Chris Bertolini knew that everyone would peg their project as an empty headed action movie- and so they force fed it all the heart-related tropes they could fit (and a few they couldn't) in hopes of proving the would be detractors wrong.

If you've ever seen a war film you already know everything you need to know about these "characters". They are a hodge podge of wartime personailties that monologue and sacrifice themselves in all the same ways as their predecessors. Each has a back-story established in one minute or less, meant only to make you miss them when they're gone, which you won't. Most of the performances are well done if not a bit bare bones, especially Aaron Eckhart who seems unwilling to let his one shade character lay still.

Going into B:LA I told Watcher X that it couldn't possibly be worse the Skyline, which was literally made up of set pieces and story lines cut and pasted from every alien invasion movie ever made. I wouldn't say that I was wrong, B:LA is certainly not worse then the broken Skyline, but it suffers from the same basic issues. Where Skyline assembled itself from used sci-fi action parts, B:LA relies on (overly) tried and true emotional parts -with a few very recognizable action moments to boot. But both are so crammed full of recycled material that the stretch marks start to show before the halfway mark.

It's a common enough story- well advertised in no way means well made. Like anyone who tries hard to be something their not, this movie over shoots it's target and lands far on the other side- in new territory but still nowhere near where it wanted so desperately to end up. While certainly enjoyable, Battle: Los Angeles is far from a must have, or even a must see. If your looking to pad your personal sci-fi portfolio then it may serve you well- but innovation seekers need not apply.

Role Call: Aaron Eckhart

Role Call is not a post about a persons strongest work or best work. Just their work that- for whatever reason- is on my mind, and why.

No, not that guy from Deep Blue Sea. Aaron Eckhart strikes me as one of those talented actors that, for whatever reason, everyone knows the face of but people rarely know the name of. Still, whether you know his name or not, his resume is undeniable. He's given us drama with the over-nominated under-awarded Rabbit Hole. He befriended Hero genre fans with his spectacular turn in The Dark Knight. He blew me away (pun intended) with Thank You for Smoking, effectively a one man show with him at the epicenter. And if you have romance on your mind, try Possession on for size. Starting today you can see him fight to save humanity inBattle: Los Angeles, but the title I'm recommending features him in a fight to save the entire planet. That's right ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about the 2003 disaster film The Core.

It's easy to dismiss as a Roland Emmerich knock off, and it's certainly not based on the strongest science in cinema history. But to all of you willing to completely discount this title, i ask that you take a look at the cast, even beyond the aforementioned Mr.Eckhart: two time Oscar winner Hillary Swank, Oscar nominee Stanely Tucci, Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins, Delroy Lindo, Bruce Greenwood, Tcheky Karyo- the writers may be in doubt but the casting directors were on their game. Academy nobility and hollywood C-listers, you can't lose.

So I suggest you grab some friends, pop in this rental, and watch the world end. Then you can hit the theater and watch it end, again.

Thanks to grannysrcool