My sweet wife Sandra is not a particular fan of SF films (though she’ll certainly watch or go see them with me), nor of war movies. Yet after we saw this movie today, she talked about how engrossed she was during the entire film. (I’ll note that she went with me to see “Skyline” last year, and her reaction afterward was: “Really?”)  That speaks well for how this film is likely to do at the box office.

What makes “Battle Los Angeles” work is that it is first and foremost a war film about Marines. My son Jon spent four years in the Corps and did a tour in Iraq; my nephew Darren is still in the Corps and is on his second tour of Afghanistan; so the Corps has a special place in my heart. I claim no particular expertise in matters of the Corps, but the film seemed very authentic all the same; some of the younger Marines looked and sounded like my son and my nephew. War film cliches abound — the grizzled staff sergeant (Aaron Eckert, in a great performance) on the verge of retirement, the young lieutenant just out of OCS, the rumors among the men about how Eckert live while his men died on his last combat tour, the mission to rescue some civilians and bring them back out of harm’s way, the steady attrition of the members of the squad — but that provides a frameworkon which hangs the rest of the story.

And the rest of the story is that it’s these human Marines vs. alien Marines, who are making an amphibious assault, coming literally up out of the waves after having landed just offshore in cities around the world. The aliens are tough, but not invincible — still, they’re chewing up everything in their path as they make their way inland. And each time the Marines think they may have things under control, the alien assault escalates.

The film uses a bit too much shaky-cam early on, but settles down  reasonably as the movie goes along. Eckert is outstanding in his role as the staff sergeant and vanishes into it far better than he did as Harvey Dent/Two Face in “The Dark Knight”. The set pieces are very intense, and the filming and art direction is outstanding: you really think you are in the ruins of Los Angeles (most of the film was shot in Louisiana, to take advantage of areas still devastated from Katrina). My only complaints — which I’ll address specifically in the spoilers below — have to do with the rationale for the alien invasion and the ending of the film.

It’s not a great enough film to make me say, “Gee, I want to turn around and go see that in the theaters again.” But it is good enough that I’ll almost certainly buy the BluRay disk when it comes out. All in all, a well-done effort. Spoilers after the jump.

SPOILERS! BE WARNED!

OK, I just about put my face in my hands when — halfway or so through the movie — the Marines, holed up in a building, find an outside ‘net link, find a TV feed, and hear a news report that scientists have determined that the aliens are here for…our water! Which they use to power their ships and themselves! And, furthermore, that (a) Earth is the only planet in the galaxy (or maybe the universe) with so much liquid water on the surface, and (b) our sea levels had already started dropping. Y’know, the director went to great lengths to achieve some level of USMC authenticity (the actors went through a mini boot camp, etc.) and yet comes up with a rationale that is not only patently false but profoundly stupid, and that any 12-year-old reader of science fiction could have set him straight on. Sheesh. The aliens could simply have landed on Europa, drilled through the ice, and pulled out all the liquid water they needed. And there are probably literally millions — and possibly billions — of planets in our galaxy alone that have liquid and/or frozen water. And…water for energy? Srsly? It was all just so profoundly stupid that it sucked a lot of the enjoyment out of the rest of the film. The director would have been far better off not having any explanation at all than to come up with that idiocy.

The second big flaw in the film (IMHO) involved the fact that the alien aircraft turned out to be drones. All the drones in an area (e.g., Los Angeles) are hypothesized to be controlled by a command ship somewhere. The last part of the film has the surviving Marines hunt for the LA command ship, then call in a missile strike on it — at which point drones start dropping out of the sky. Once again: srsly? A race capable of interstellar travel can’t build an autonomous drone? We can build an autonomous drone now, and we can’t even get humans beyond low earth orbit any more. And in an echo far, far too reminiscent of “Independence Day”, once the alien control ship in LA is taken out, the news is radioed to the other cities being invaded, so that they can take them out as well.

I think it should be mandatory for anyone making an alien invasion movie to read and heed this article over at Cracked. I think that “Battle Los Angeles” made just about every mistake listed here. It is a tribute to how well done the movie was that I enjoyed it anyway. As always, your mileage may vary.  ..bruce w..

My eye was caught over at the Apple Movie Trailers site by an upcoming film named “2012: Time for Change“. I read the movie synopsis and was practically overcome with giggling.

“2012: Time for Change” presents an optimistic alternative to apocalyptical doom and gloom. Directed by Emmy Award nominee Joao Amorim, the film follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on a quest for a new paradigm that integrates the archaic wisdom of tribal cultures with the scientific method. As conscious agents of evolution, we can redesign post-industrial society on ecological principles to make a world that works for all. Rather than breakdown and barbarism, 2012 heralds the birth of a regenerative planetary culture where collaboration replaces competition, where exploration of psyche and spirit becomes the new cutting edge, replacing the sterile materialism that has pushed our world to the brink.

Srsly? ..bruce..

…we can start looking at potential candidates for next year.  Hat tip to John in the comments to this post over at Language Log.  ..bruce w..

So, how many of these scenes do you recognized? Hat tip to John August. ..bruce w..

It’s interesting how easily “Groundhog Day” could well have been done as drama/horror. Hat tip to Sippican Cottage. ..bruce w..

I didn’t have plans to go see “The Book of Eli”, even though the trailer made it look like “Fallout 3: The Movie” (I happen to be a big fan of “Fallout 3“). But then I read some early reviews that indicated that “Eli” might indeed be worth seeing, so my sweet wife Sandra and I went yesterday.

I’m glad we did. And she is, too.

I won’t recap the plot here, except to say that Eli (Denzel Washington) is carrying a book west across the devastated North American continent, and Carnegie (Gary Oldman) — who runs his own ruined town — wants that specific book.Oldman uses every tactic he can think of to persuade or force Eli to hand over the book.

“Eli” is a truly fascinating and remarkable movie. On one level, it’s a stylized post-apocalyptic samurai movie. On another, it is a classic Greek drama, with archetypes, divine intervention, and inexorable consequences. On yet a third, it is a morality play about Good and Evil, one that could have roots in the Middle Ages. Finally, it is a subtle yet profound treatise on faith in general and on Christian faith in particular. There are layers upon layers here, particularly as the film reaches its denouement — and said denouement means that I will go back into the theaters to see it a second time with new eyes.

My main criticism is the language, the principle reason for the ‘R’ rating. (Yes, there is violence, but it is very stylized and not much different from what you’ve seen in films such as “The Lord of the Rings”.)  It wasn’t necessary (the Greeks didn’t need it in their plays), though it did serve as a marker between characters on either side of the great divide.

The acting was excellent; the directing was outstanding; the art direction was very effective (and, yes, the film looked a lot like “Fallout 3″). What was most telling, though, was the depth of characterization and writing. “Eli” shows just how banal and shallow “Avatar”‘ is, both in story and characterization. In particular, Gary Oldman’s character — Carnegie — is vastly more believable, sympathetic and effective as an antagonist than either Parker Selfridge (the corporate scum) or Col. Miles Quaritch (the military scum) in “Avatar”.  Likewise, the religious themes in “Avatar” come across as rather goofy feel-good New Age-ism compared to the themes of faith, sacrifice, and suffering in “Eli”.

As John Notle said over at Big Hollywood, “Eli” in the end is a genre movie. But what a genre movie — possibly the best of its kind (though I have to reserve judgment until I see “The Road”).  Your mileage may vary.

SPOILER AFTER THE JUMP

WARNING. SPOILER AND REALLY SERIOUS SPOILERS.

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The book that Eli is carrying — and that Carnegie wants more than anything else — is the Bible, apparently the last copy in existence. Carnegie wants it because he knows he can use its language to manipulate people and build his power base. Eli is acting on communications from God — God told him where the Bible was buried and has been guiding him west for 20 to 30 years towards a place where the Bible belongs. Eli’s copy is bound and locked, and Eli has been reading from it “every day” for those same 20-30 years. Eli — who pre-apocalypse was a Wal-Mart greeter — has incredibly keen senses and absolutely deadly fighting skills — unarmed, with a large, sharp knife, or with a gun. He wanders into Carnegie’s town looking for a charge on his external battery for his iPod. A fight in the main saloon (Carnegie’s HQ) leaves several people dead and Carnegie intrigued. He offers Eli a leadership position, unlimited clean water (a rarity), and sex with a beautiful young girl (Solara, the daughter of Carnegie’s woman, Claudia) to stick around; Eli refuses all of it and tries to leave town, even as Carnegie finds out that Eli has a Bible.  Confrontations and chases ensue; they end with Eli shot and lying in the dirt, and Carnegie heading back to town (minus most of his men) with the Bible (Eli told Carnegie where he hid it rather than let Carnegie kill Solara).

REALLY SERIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD

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Eli — instead of going back to town after the Bible — continues west, helped along by Solara (she’s got one of Carnegie’s still-functioning cars). They make it to the ruins of San Francisco, and Eli indicates that they need to head out to the island in the middle of the bay — Alcatraz. There Eli indeed finds a community, one dedicated to rebuilding civilization by collecting and reprinting whatever books they can find. But one book they don’t have is the Bible. Eli, still suffering from his wound (Fisher King, anyone?), tells the leader there to get lots of paper — and begins to recite the KJV Bible entirely from memory.

And we see for the first time that Eli is blind.

Change back to Carnegie’s town. Carnegie has the town engineer carefully pick open the lock on the book. Carnegie opens it — and sees that the Bible is entirely in Braille. He tries to get Claudia (who is blind) to read it, but she claims (with a smile) that it’s been too long since she last read Braille. In the meantime, all of Carnegie’s power structure is falling down — most of his henchmen are dead, and his control over the town evaporates.

Back at Alcatraz, Eli finishes dictating the Bible, then dies from his wounds. But the community there prints a hardbound copy of the Bible and places it among the other religious books in their collection. Solara takes Eli’s weapons and starts to head east back to Carnegie’s town and her mother.

Food for thought.  ..bruce..

I swear this exact scene was in "Avatar". Except everyone was blue.

I saw “Avatar” (in 3-D) yesterday afternoon and saw “Sherlock Holmes” this afternoon.

I’ll be going back to see “Sherlock Holmes” again, probably within a week; “Avatar” will have to wait for DVD, if then.

“Avatar” is worth seeing once on the large screen, in 3-D, just for the sheer visual spectacle and technical brilliance. But the plot, character development (or lack thereof) and dialog is every bit as wretched, unoriginal, and stereotypical as others have warned. The film really, really is “Dances with Wolves” meets “Ferngully: the Last Rainforest“, to such an extent that I felt embarrassed for James Cameron, who wrote and directed the film. Not only was there not an original thought, theme, or plot twist in the entire film, the whole film was largely predictable from the start, with developments telegraphed far in advanced, and the characters were unrelentingly one-dimensional. No nuances, shading, or sympathies here. The “aliens” look, dress, ride, fight, and even whoop like stereotypical Hollywood Indians, and their bodies — largely human except for being (a) blue, (b) 15 feet tall, (c) with a tail, and (d) having a neural interface built in to their ‘pony tail’ — make no sense for the environment, particularly having plain human feet (5 toes, none-prehensile big toe) in an arboreal environment. The longer I go since leaving the theater yesterday, the less I think of the film — the technical excellence fades and the bad taste of the actual underlying film remains.

By contrast, “Sherlock Holmes” is worth seeing repeatedly, both on the big screen and once the DVD comes out. It is a deceptively excellent film. I say “deceptively” because it is only when it is over that you begin to realize just how well the entire film was directed, edited, performed, and art-directed. Robert Downey Jr (in the title role) does more to establish Holmes’ character within the first few minutes of the film than any of the “Pandora” actors do during that film’s entire 2:40 length. The chemistry between Downey and Jude Law (who plays Watson) is instant, real, and believable. All the characters are complex, imperfect, and conflicted, yet drive towards their respective goals, enduring the consequences along the way. And it’s all great fun, with some real tension and great visuals along the way. It probably noses out “District 9″ as the best film I’ve seen this year.

Based on my own viewings — and based on the crowds today waiting to see “Sherlock Holmes” — I not only think that “Sherlock Holmes” will win the weekend box office, I think that it will dominate “Avatar” for the rest of their respective box office runs here in the US. Your mileage may vary.  ..bruce w..

xkcd hits it again.  Click on the comic to see the original (larger) version.  ..bruce w..

Fake movie trailer mashups are among my favorite videos on the ‘net. This one imagines a 1951 version of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, staring Charlton Heston as Indiana Jones. Quite well done. with some great footage. ..bruce w..

No, really, Captain -- 40 years from now, they'll still be filming this.

The original “Star Trek” series started on NBC the same month I started my freshman year at Grossmont High. It ran two and a half seasons before dying, but eventually spawned a long list of movies and four successive TV series (ST: The Next Generation, ST: Deep Space Nine, ST: Voyager, and Enterprise) — not a bad legacy that. However, aside from some flashes of brilliance in ST:TNG, the whole franchise pretty much hit its peak with the second film “ST: The Wrath of Khan” (1982) and never quite climbed that high again.

There was, however, an early chance to reboot. At the end of the third Star Trek film — “The Search for Spock” (1984) — the Enterprise has been destroyed, and Captain Kirk and his crew are largely on the run from the Federation in a captured Klingon warship. While the film itself was a letdown from “Wrath of Khan”, it provided an opportunity to take the familiar characters in a dramatically (or at least significantly) different direction. Instead, ST IV (“The Voyage Home”, 1986) recycled the main plot element of the first Star Trek movie and by film’s end had restored the crew to the Federation’s good graces and to a brand-spanking-new Enterprise. The entire Star Trek universe has pretty much been stuck in a rut ever since.

Until now.

Abrams has done, at least to a certain extent, what Paramount should have done 25 years ago: freed the characters from the trap of Star Trek canon. The film starts with changed history: Kirk’s father ends up in command of a Federation star ship just long enough to destroy the ship and end his own life buying time for most of the crew and civilians on board to escape from a massive ship that has appeared out of nowhere. His newborn son, James Tiberius Kirk, grows up as a troubled, rowdy, brilliant young man, who accepts a challenge from a Federation captain — Christopher Pike — to attend Star Fleet Academy. He meets up with other (to us) familiar characters — McCoy, Uhuru, Chekov, Sulu, and, yes, Spock — who find themselves thrust into the middle of a threat to the entire Federation.

The film is, in my opinion, a complete success. It has a few flaws — too many lens flares, and some goofy (from a scientific point of view) exposition in the middle explaining just what’s happening and why. But it easily rivals “Wrath of Khan” for the position of best Star Trek movie ever (though it’s hard to argue against William Shatner and Ricardo Montelban chewing up the scenery and spitting it at one another). The cinematography and directing frankly exceeds any previous Star Trek movie, and the special effects make it just that much more stunning; the opening five minutes of “Star Trek” has more action, pathos, and drama than the grand climax of most preceding Star Trek movies.

The youth of the familiar characters at times borders on making the film seem like an ST version of “Teen Titans” or “Smallville”, but part of the fun is not just seeing them at a young age but seeing them start to form bonds (a few of which are unexpected and definitely not canon).  But it’s a well-done film that can stand on its own merits and that thankfully avoids (except in homage) the cliches and traps of all that has preceded it. A big thumbs up.

SPOILERS AHEAD — SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP

The fundamental plot is that over a century in the future (of the film), an aging Ambassador Spock (“Spock Prime”) fails to stop a supernova in time to save the planet Romulus (center of the Romulan empire). However, he is still able to implode the supernova using ‘red matter’ to trigger the creation of a black hole — but that same black hole drags both Spock Prime and a massive Romulan mining ship, led by one Captain Nero (Eric Bana) — back into the past. Nero and his ship captures Spock Prime and uses some of the ‘red matter’ to create a black hole at the center of Vulcan — thus destroying the whole planet. And Nero’s next target is Earth.

As mentioned, the scientific exposition in the middle of the film is goofy. In Spock Prime’s future, a supernova “threatens the galaxy”, goes off early, and destroys Romulus (and, one must presume, a whole pile of other systems, since that star didn’t appear to be Romulus’s star). This ignores the fact that the blast wave from the supernova travels at light speed and would take, oh, years if not decades or centuries to reach Romulus. Spock Prime’s use of red matter at one little part of the shock wave causes the supernova to collapse into a black hole that sucks Spock and Nero both back in time (instead of simply crushing them). After capturing Spock Prime, Nero dumps him on the surface of what has to be another planet in the Vulcan system, where Spock is able to seen Vulcan (and its destruction) as large and clear as we can see the Moon (vs., say, how we see Mars, Venus, and other planets, namely as little points of light). That really turns out to be largely a plot convenience to have Spock Prime and Kirk end up on the same planet together.

This is all stupid (and wrong) on so many levels that I just have to wonder what Abrams was thinking here. I mean, it’s one thing to do the requisite “sufficiently advanced technology” to get us warp drive and transporters. This kind of stupidity, however, is equivalent to having Kirk fly up the side of a building unaided. Sigh.

That said, it’s still a great film. Go see it.  ..bruce..