A Brief Movie Review (Spoilers-Kind of): Battle: Los Angeles

Grade: B-

Comments

It was good. A little long, but I enjoyed the aliens–they were creepy looking.

Commentary

If you need an alien action movie to wet your pallet for the Summer action blockbusters, this will do. It’s no Independence Day, but it’s better than War of the Worlds (that whack Tom Cruise one). The dialogue is no more masculinist and pro-US-military than any other alien movie. Luckily, there is more gun fire and explosions than talking which makes the movie move more quickly. The B is because it was good. It wasn’t great, but it was slightly better than average because most of the brown people make it out alive. Michelle Rodriguez fits in with the boys, as usual. All the black people live, and the white guy saves the day.

It’s a matinee movie; certainly, not worth full price. I like my action movies on the big screen, but you could see this at home on USA or TNT and not miss anything significant…

Alternative Reading, or an explanation of the minus

Another way you can read this movie is by thinking about grand narrative of anti-immigration policies, particularly against Latinos in America. There was one Nigerian man who was serving in the military in order to “earn” his citizenship. The two Latino men in the movie died (“for their country”), but a Latino boy lives and it was clear that he was being recruited into the military too, because that’s how you earn citizenship in this country: Kill other aliens.