The second alien invasion movie in the past several months, Battle: Los Angeles is the real deal and makes Skyline look like a student film if that student could manage millions of dollars of special effects.

Instead of focusing on self-absorbed douche bags doing stupid and boring things against ridiculous aliens after ridiculous things, Battle: Los Angeles focuses on a squad of Marines sent into the city to rescue civilians trapped in a police station before the air force carpet bombs the city during an alien invasion. At first it seems like there are only ground forces but that doesn’t last as the aliens have drones in the air that make short work of the military. The movie is intense and once it gets going there are few pauses in the action.

The film starts out a bit slow delivering standard introductions of the members of the squad. The characters are pretty much stock war movie characters hitting up all the usual suspects: the virgin, the guy about to get married, the dude with a baby on the way, the shell shocked combat vet pulled back into duty before his therapist says it is ok, the staff Sargent who got his last group killed and is riddled with self-doubt, the brother of one of those men the Staff Sargent got kill, the Lt. who just got out of training and freezes in battle and so on. The first 15 or so minutes of the movie really don’t inspire confidence. The characters are so standard that it is hard to imagine the rest of the movie won’t follow suit and the shaky cam makes it almost impossible to focus on anything or anyone which becomes a real roadblock to actually connecting with the characters. It was obvious that this part of the movie was designed solely to make you give a damn about these guys before aliens start thinning out the cast but it all moves so fast and with such shaky camera and quick cuts that you feel off balance and unable to connect.

Once they are on the streets and moving, however, all hell breaks loose and the movie feels as intense as a straight war movie like Black Hawk Down. The shaky cam comes into its own and keeps tight on the action to draw you right into it.  A lot of the characters become hard to tell apart from one another with the helmets on so when they go down there isn’t always emotional resonance but it is typically pretty brutal and unforgiving.

One of the things I dug about this movie was that, while there are some holes and some details that don’t stand up to much scrutiny, the Marines acted the way you would imagine a squad of soldiers might behave in the situation. When they find a wounded alien they take the body to try to find a kill point so they don’t waste ammo, when they find a critical detail they pursue it instead of just riding the chopper home. The Marines in this movie are hardcore and unwavering. What they aren’t are indestructible. Plenty of them go down and go down hard in the movie and their deaths are not treated lightly but the movie doesn’t bog down in sentimentality.

The effects are incredibly well done and look convincing from beginning to end. I am not especially sold on the alien designs. I didn’t care for the ones in Skyline either and since they were handled by the same effects team I am not surprised that they didn’t impress here. Aliens in movies present a problem because it is hard to come up with something unique and keep it functional and in the realm of possibility. If you throw that out and go with something fanciful then fanboys are going to be on your ass about how that isn’t possible but if you get too functional and boring then you get them attacking you for your lack of imagination. The aliens here work well enough even if they weren’t outstanding.

Performances were good with some heavy emotional lifting thrown into standard combat stuff. Aaron Eckhart is a great anchor to the film and leads with both strength and vulnerability. The rest of the cast are lesser known actors but all acquit themselves well and are always convincing. Given the level of intensity here it would be pretty easy to get into hamfisted territory but Battle: Los Angeles keeps it subdued enough to maintain realism without sacrificing the tension.

It would be easy to be cynical about a movie like this and pick apart the details like why the aliens want to harvest our water when other planets have it and once space travel is conquered synthesizing H2O shouldn’t be very hard, but to do so would be to miss the point and over think your way out of a lot of intense fun. Now granted, I nitpicked the shit out of Skyline but the difference between the two, aside from one having a competent director and the other having two egotistical special effects guys for directors, is that Battle: Los Angeles isn’t boring. If you just go with the action and focus on that then the movie is very successful occasional cliches be damned.

Conclusion [9.0 our of 10]

There are going to be a lot of fan boys complaining about this because they are going to be bothered by the little details of the plot. The way the movie is, though, the plot is almost a McGuffin. It doesn’t really matter what the reasons behind any of it is, it exists so the Marines can fight it. If you want in depth analysis of why aliens might invade earth and how then you are probably going to be disappointed. If you are looking for a gritty war movie where the humans are fighting aliens then you have come to the right place. It is way heavier than Independence Day and WAY more exciting than Skyline. Your enjoyment overall is really going to depend on your expectations going in and where exactly your tastes fall along the alien invasion movie continuum. For my money,  Battle: Los Angeles is a gripping and intense sci-fi actioner that shouldn’t be missed.