“Battle: Los Angeles” has taken the plot, cinematography, and atmosphere from some of the greatest sci-fi genre movies from the past decades and mashes them together for a great action thriller of 2011.

Film lead Michael Nantz, played by Aaron Eckhart commands a squad of marines through battle torn Los Angeles in hope of evacuating civilians from enemy controlled areas. The story is all too familiar and cliché with other war films where a squad of marines fight against untold odds behind enemy lines to secure an objective. A simple and straightforward story for a film built on action scenes.

The unknown alien antagonist held their mysteriousness throughout the film since there’s no need to go into detail about where they come from or who they are, but just they’re here attacking our planet for our resources. The mystery of the aliens puts the audience into the shoes of the marines about how they view the invasion force.

The cinematography in this film is beautiful, every scene is constant action with wide shots of the destruction of Los Angeles to close up scenes of marines holding off the enemy until reinforcements arrives.

The dialogue is cheesy at best especially with its long monologues where one actor’s line would just turn into an unnecessary speech about their past life’s, which no one might find interesting because the film focuses primarily on the action.

Fans of first-person shooters such as Halo or Killzone would find mass appeal in this film because of video game elements that influenced the different battle scenes

Even though the originality of this film has been beaten to death, Battle: Los Angeles deserves its place among one of the great sci-fi action flicks released within the past decade.