Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsGUNNING FOR ET. OO-RAH !
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 November 2022
This is a review of the July 2011 All Region Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. It is a top quality disc, bright and clear, and comes with masses of extras.
This film is emphatically not going to be to everyone’s taste. If you dislike gung-ho war movies, look away now: ditto anything involving Americans being Americans on a grand scale. Both are writ large here, but if you have no allergies in these respects, then this is a 'shoot-em up' treat with magnificent CGI, and some nice twists. The highly regarded ‘Radio Times Guide to Films’ comments that the film is “War of the Worlds meets The Hurt Locker”, and describes it as “down-and-dirty”. That is pretty accurate.
Interestingly, the original idea behind the film, came from an incident in February 1942, weeks after the USA and Japan went to war in World War Two. There were inevitably rumours that Japan might attack the continental United States, and on 23 February, a Japanese submarine shelled Ellwood, near Santa Barbara. The following day, a false alarm engendered by a meteorological balloon, triggered a major barrage by anti-aircraft artillery, over LA. The event became known as the ‘Battle of Los Angeles’. Screenwriter Christopher Bertolini wrote a screenplay referencing the incident, but in the event, set it in the present, and made the invaders, extra-terrestrial aliens.
Jonathan Liebesman, the South African-born director, sought a documentary-style approach. His inspiration was the immediacy and eye-level view of ‘Black Hawk Down’(2001) and ‘Saving Private Ryan’(1998). He opted not to use hand-held cameras, as he didn’t want to make his audience sea-sick, but he did use a rapid-fire intercutting technique between 3 cameras, which creates a similar effect. He also sought to replicate some of the Iraqi war footage available on YouTube, so we are down in the dust and debris, as his Marine Corps characters go up against their unknown foe, participating in the fire-fights and breathless, heart-stopping, hide and seek antics, necessary to survive.
The ensemble cast gets stuck in, barely stopping for breath. Aaron Eckhart, such an effective DA Harvey Dent in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’, is excellent here as the veteran Staff Sergeant.
Interestingly, the actual plot starts with a very narrow objective for the characters. But as in life, chance then takes over. The result is something which has a very marked immediacy. This feels like real-time newsreel footage rather than cinema, and is uncomfortably reminiscent of watching BBC reporters, embedded with armed forces in war zones around the world. And like any genuine Live Fire incident, there is a feeling of deep uncertainty, some incoherence, genuine dread. Nothing here is smooth and well-planned, everything’s improvised, high risk, often ineffective and occasionally slightly repetitive. The ‘learning on the job’ aspects, given the totally unknown target, is particularly effective. There is a small Hollywoodesque nod to ‘cutesy’, with a couple of kids involved, but that is kept pretty low key.
So, not Shakespeare, Nolan or Spielberg, but exciting, immediate and surprisingly effective. Semper Fi!