In the ongoing quest to become the world’s biggest geek (and with Elsie, the world’s greatest geek couple) I’ve decided to blog about my geeky viewings as well.  As the years go on I want proof of everything I watched, read, etc.  I want my thoughts out there for the masses.  I want to be up on stage at a Comic Con and have someone question my opinion of something in a year olds article for a movie I forgot I ever watched.

There might be a name for this quest later.  But for now let me tell you what I’m watching.  Today is my first viewing ever for Battle LA!

Harry Knowles was the first person who I read mentioning this thing, but I’ve seen it elsewhere since.  Part of watching a movie is the atmosphere, everything around you.  So I’m at home, dressed lazy comfortable, with iced coffee and cold pizza beside me while working off of our first and thus far only laptop.  This movie came in the mail on disc through Netflix.  It scares me that the day will come when that will seem to be a foreign and strange method of watching movies.  Onto the show!

The DVD menu screen has been playing for some time now while I wrote the opening.  Play movie, languages, previews.  No features here.  This of course means there will be a special edition re release double dip later on.  Also, Michelle Rodriguez plays a tough girl in this film.  Its entirely possible I’m seeing her screen stills from Avatar here.

Movie is PG-13 and lets see how far they push that.

News clips and audio open the show.  “Meteors” crash into earth, later revealed to be a military invasion.  We’re joining the movie already waist deep into the shit.  A CNN briefing with the general says the the military has lost contact with other bases on the west coast, Los Angeles is the last stand.  Great aerial scene of the damaged metropolis and title screen.

We jump back 24 hours to see how everyone got to this point.  We first meet Sgt (or whatever) Michael Nantz working out at Camp Pendleton.  You know what, there is no way I’m expecting great character development here.  I’ll forgo names at times and give descriptive terms.  Old guy Sgt is passed by the younger ones.  He drives onto base and the radio mentions a meteor shower.  Old man is going to retire and there’s this blanket of his history that hangs over the conversation.

Black soldier and white soldier bring the comedy.  They are the odd couple buddy cop partners of this movie.  They’re planning a wedding along with black soldiers other half.  Well, the legal other half.  The flower shop is playing CNN, like so many do, and Tokyo has meteors falling overhead.

I’m lost on characters being thrown at me with such minimal development.  We have the foreign soldier, his teammate that says stupid things, another soldier seeing a skrink, another talking to a fallen brother at the cemetery.  I realize its so we care when most of them die but I’d rather care about 1 or 2 people than 10.

At least these development attempts have news on the meteors in the background.  The Marines we’ve been following are being mobilized to evacuate the citizens of LA should the meteors crash into populated areas.  While they’ve already hit Tokyo, and one other areas, apparently they haven’t “hatched” for lack of a better term.

Alright, shit’s finally going down.  The Marines are informed the truth of what is known.  The meteors slow down before impact and something is hidden within them.  This is classified information, for about 5 minutes.  News footage of the meteors hitting is shown and one crashes into a battleship.  Figures are seen on the ship and then more alien forces march through the water and onto the beach, firing at everything.  The marines realize that this is it and roll out.

By the time the Marine helicopters arrive the city is already under siege.  There is a very clear line of how far the battle is progressed, but its come far in the short time since the battle started and that’s only getting worse.  A commanding officer tells the Marine that they are leveling Santa Monica.  Their orders are to get out any civilians they can before the air team scorches the earth.  They have three hours.  Well that doesn’t sound like an overwhelming order at all.

The marines are sent to rescue civilians and its a great way to still have drama without needing to do the massive special effects necessary to show an entire city under attack.  The crew find a dog and it causes them to leave their guard down long enough to allow the enemy to attack.  Because of the smoke and debris of battle we don’t see any details on the aliens.  There are already deaths, injuries and overwhelming fear paralysis.  A television in the background says Britain is also under attack.  They dive for cover in a house and the Lt starts crumbling.  All the schooling he had was nice but he doesn’t have a clue what to do now.  Every sound makes the guys jump.  One on one shoot out with an alien!  It takes a few dozen if not hundreds of rounds plus a grenade to put the alien down.

Still trying to make their way to the police station, the team comes under attack yet again in the middle of a street.  More injuries and death.  The corps dive into a store front to regroup.  Due to the chaos of the battle they almost fire on fellow soldiers numerous times.  Foreshadowing?  What’s left of another group meets up with our heroes and Michelle Rodriguez enters the movie.

They arrive at the police station and begin the search for civilians.  I see this going very very badly and I wont be shocked if there’s no one left alive.  Ah shit, its the even worse cliche.  They find five inside, and three are kids.  This wont go well at all.  Wounded marines are loaded on a helicopter instead of the civilians they spent all this time rescuing.  The chopper takes off and… boom.  Looks like the enemy has air support.  Not only do they have air support the tiny fighters converge and form one bigger fighter.  Well damn, we are well and truly screwed now.

The Marines start to crumble, facing an enemy they don’t know they can beat.  Its the down time calm part of the movie.  The Marines that are outside see the legion of invaders all around them.  TV’s are still playing in the background (how is the electric grid still working?) and the opinion is that this is an alien race here to take over, colonize, and take our water.  The USMC is going to hotwire a bus to try to get everyone out and safe in under an hour.  An alien body is found outside and luckily for all, the civilian woman is a veterinarian.  They do a nasty autopsy on the body trying to figure out how it functions and thus how to kill it.  The weapons are grafted onto their bodies.  The aliens are at the gate and everyone prepares to get out.  Old Guy and Michelle figure out how to kill the aliens – puncture to the right of where the heart should be.  Its an alien!  How do you know where the heart would be on it!?  Everyone loads up on the bus and makes the scramble to get out.

The bus ride starts out as a good idea until the aliens’ phalanx of air support flies overhead.  Old man realizes that the aliens are tracing their signals and everyone turns off radios, phones (again, how would they still be working?!) and anything similar.  Old man rigs up a walkie talkie over at a gas station and tricks the alien craft into coming near so he can blow up the station and the ship with one grenade.  The aircraft was unmanned, so they have even more higher technology to worry about now.  The Lieutenant realizes that this is no longer his company, they are all fully behind Old man.  “Retreat Hell!”  becomes one of my new favorite sayings.

Things seem to be going well, which means they aren’t.  Part of the highway is gone and the bus has no way to reach the rescue point.  The bus stops and starts to take fire from numerous aliens.  Casualties come fast.  A zip line is prepped, but the Marines doing so fall.  Michelle turns out to be better with a gun than anyone expected (which seems to be a signature move for her).  I don’t know how it took this long but I start to see the video game influence of the movie.  A larger alien weapon just showed up and its a boss battle for sure.  An explosion takes out the zip line for a moment making the escape even more dramatic.  One of the marines we’ve been following (told you the names wouldn’t matter) saves Michelle from a blast and dies.  One of the civilians, well the non vet one, picks up a gun long enough to take out an alien, then dies himself.  Old man doesn’t want more people to die.  Fresh out of school Lt. tells him to leave and that’s an order!   Lieutenant sacrifices himself to set off the bomb and save the survivors for long enough to get off the bridge.

There’s dissension in the ranks, because that’s what’s needed when the whole world is about to end, and the crew thinks the Old Man left the Lt. to die.  Oh, the civilian is still alive, for now.  Old man talks about making decisions in the heat of battle, when there is no right choice.  Michelle gets an internet connection and not only do we find out that the aliens are using water for fuel, but also that there is a command ship off the coast.  Every coast.  Blow that up and you can take out the drones and soldiers easily.  Time has run out though, and they brace for the impact of the bomb.  It doesn’t come.  The Marines and crew make their way to the airport, which is no longer there.  The bomb didn’t drop because there was no one to drop the bomb.  Damn.

Old man tries to come up with a battle plan and gets the bad news that the civilian has died.  His son cries over him and other than old man this is the height of character development for the flick.  “Marines don’t quit.”  Well damn, I’ll add this scene to my movie recruiting movies list.  Old man finally has it out with his soldiers and tells them the burden he carries of being responsible for the deaths of young men.  He remembers everyone of them.  These soldiers will now follow old man into hell itself for the rest of their lives.  Everyone loads up into two vehicles and they’re able to contact the secondary extraction site.  They have only minutes to make their way and hope to get out alive.  Did Michelle just yell out “get that frakker out of here”?  They actually make it to the helicopter in time.

Did the chopper pilot say “we’re abandoning Los Angeles”?

Everything seems over, it looks like our crew is safe, but something cuts the power.  Old man sees an area without power and thinks it might be a center for the aliens command.  He drops from the helicopter to do recon.  And Every Single One of His Troops follows him.  Damn that was a good moment.  The blackout area is their control center and the Marines drop underground to try to take it out.  Holy crap the command and control is huge.  Talk about insurmountable odds.  It has somehow become daylight again while they were underground.  The sun comes up quick in LA.  “Let those bastards know who they’re fucking with.”  Yeah, there’s the one the PG-13 rating gets.  The Marines get out a radio message (and the man dies) and have to hold off the aliens long enough for the bomb.  Missiles are eventually fired and the Marines celebrate.  Until the ground starts to shake.   The CAC rises out of the ground and it looks to be all over.  Michelle and another Marine drive their rifles right into the body of an alien and open fire.  Old man gets the laser sighting up for the rockets.  Michelle takes out the drone that would have stopped the rocket.  The drones crsh and the alien soldiers start to retreat.

Its finally over, at least for our group in LA.  Only five or so of them survive.  They make their way to the temporary base of operations where their tale has already become legend.  Everyone sits down, and looks like they wont get up for months.  Old man grabs an empty clip and starts loading up for round two of the fight.  The rest of the team joins him and readies for bear.