Solid movie. Shit blows up, things die. Entertained throughout.

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Team Cutler.

Someone called it Blackhawk Down meets Independence Day. Fair representation?

That's not bad. More Blackhawk Down for sure though

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Team Cutler.

I would be disappointed if they never used Sublime's April 29th 1992 in the movie.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

This movie sucked. It was half budgeted, terribly predictable, and every cool scene was shown in the trailer. It was like watching someone play a bad first person shooter. Not to mention the word 'Marines' is stated well over 10 times in the last hour. That's such amateur script writing. I wasn't nearly as entertained as I thought I would be. Michelle Rodriguez and Aaron Eckhart aren't bad, but that's about it.

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i can't think of a better example of a straight to dvd movie.

although i'm sure the straight to dvd mockbuster would be called "Battle Los Andes."

This could have been a seriously epic film.

Halo fans should be very worried if Dreamworks drops the film rights to the popular FPS. Battle LA is an example of a worst case scenario for science fiction fans.

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I'm not sure what you expected from this movie. I think it was fine for what it was... a Friday night popcorn flick. Saving Private Ryan, it was not.

I actually liked it better than Independence Day which tried to do waaay too much and flat on almost everything. I thought this was more focused and entertaining.

And I know it is a completely different film, but District 9 was a much better film, because it attacked the same trite story (aliens invading) from a truly unique angle.

About $50 million more added to the budget would have been nice. Some actual emotional connection when Eckhart's character is making his big speech. More than 3 so-called 'Battles.' An explanation of the alien more than, "It wants our water." A final battle sequence I didn't laugh at in the middle of the movie theater. Maybe a script worth reading. Alien spacecraft which didn't look like bad CGI (Speaking of which, did you catch the scene where the the alien gun ship sat over two or three cars firing rounds all over? The graphics team was so terrible none of the cars are shown fatigued by the bullets). I could probably keep going, but even I'm bored at this point discussing a movie which already stole 2 hours of my life.

My main gripe with these types of invasion films is we, the moviegoer, never see the badass high tech equipment the military has behind closed doors. Yeah, it's probably a national security risk, but I think we're way overdue for seeing the anti gravity air crafts and laser weapons on the big screen.

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3 battles were plenty. If you've been in the military and seen close quarters battles... I thought this was MUCH more realistic version of what something might look like than the crap you see in most films. I much prefer a more realistic take than the crazy bullshit from the Halo franchise.

I can't comment on the CGI, but it certainly didn't bother me as much.

I would've liked to have learned more about the aliens and their motives, but it was clear the main thrust for the film is to follow this squad and show their struggle.

Like I said before, I liked the movie for what it was. It didn't try to be Independence Day Part 2. I really enjoyed Blackhawk Down. That's what this reminded me of. Blackhawk Down had shitty dialogue too... but it was still well done, IMHO.

Blackhawk Down was ten years ago. This movie shouldn't just be comparable, it should be better than BHD. It's not. We don't have to agree.

The initial drafts for the Halo screenplay were very similar to this. Following a small squad of soldiers as they are escorted around by Master Chief. Close knit battles with tight shot cinematography. Gritty landscapes. Neil Bloomkamp(?) and Peter Jackson put together a 5 minute short back in maybe 2007 as sort of a promo for a full length Halo movie. I kept flashing back to that short film treatment while watching BLA wondering, "Why didn't Hollywood just make a Halo film?" Apparently, the biggest issue with transferring Halo from video game to big screen is the fact Master Chief doesn't talk much. You'd almost have to make the unit of soldiers the main characters. This would cause an international message board nerd bomb detonation so unstable worldwide internet servers would take weeks to recover.

I never once thought of Independence Day while watching this. ID involved more air battles.

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