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| By AARON SKETCHLEY (aaronsketch@HOTdelete_thisMAIL.com) | Ver 1.4 2021.09.02 |
Another of the film's strong points is its visuals: notwithstanding the eye candy, it is a gorgeous film to look at, with a lot of care put into what appears on the screen. The visual choreography—not just the fight scenes, but the editing of the shots—is breathtaking at times. The future tech it presents is also unique and intriguing in its own way. I don't think anyone will look at grass the same way after seeing this film!
That said, although the story is done well (not necessarily well done), it leaves the viewer feeling that it could have fleshed things out a bit more here and there, and at the very least, made the protagonists a bit more sympathetic.
Battle: Los Angeles is a war movie, with aliens. It focuses in on and follows the one Marine unit, and refrains from giving us a big-picture overview, or even going into detail on who the aliens are, their leadership, and why they're invading urban areas. In some ways, it's frustrating, but in many other ways, it's a good thing, as it forces the viewer to come up with their own answers.
The ensemble cast is filled with well-known faces, which helps make it easier to keep track of who's who—always a challenge in war films as everyone tends to be dressed in the same drab uniforms. The film is loaded with plenty of war-movie cliches. However, the twist that the enemy army are aliens makes it arguably much more interesting, as that naturally increases the unpredictability of the film. The writers and director wisely put limits on what the aliens know and understand about humans, and that leads to dozens of scenes where the aliens blindly ignore what is obvious to another human, or the aliens take inexplicable actions because they don't know what the human priorities are.
While the film doesn't have the same intensity as Aliens, Battle: Los Angeles successfully walks the same path, and even manages to give us some unexpected new takes in the soldiers vs. aliens genre.
The film was at once extremely familiar and foreign. So many movies and anime have copied its cityscapes that I was immediately reminded of such works as Bubble Gum Crisis, and the influence they had on my manga work in the early '90s. The plot, on the other hand, is more about what it suggests and implies, than what it specifically shows. Take Tyrell's massive trifocal glasses—what do they say about the character? Couldn't those massive trifocals be a metaphor for Tyrell being the all seeing, but at the same time a barrier that blinds him?
Throwing my 2 cents into the debate on whether Deckard is a Replicant or not: I'll say this: all the humans in the film are portrayed as physically flawed (e.g.: Gaff has a limp, Sebastian has Methuselah Syndrome) and the Replicants are not. In reading some of the debate on Deckard, one point stood out: what if Deckard is a Replicant with Gaff's memories? It certainly explains some things. And even though that deflates the navel gazing on such things as a human falling in love with a Replicant, it does adds a slew of new thoughts—do androids experience love the same as we do? What exactly is it that makes a human a human? Is this film told from the Replicant's perspective? And so on.
Humans, on the other hand, have been decimated by the simian flu—the global pandemic accidentally released at the end of the preceding film. Something on the order of only 1 in 500 people survived that infection, and the survivors are few and far between. So few, that one orangutan remarks to Caesar that they haven't seen any human at all in the last 2 years!
However, a hundred or so human survivors are eking out an existence in the ruins of San Francisco, and are '3 weeks' from running out of fuel to power their generations. They have sent a small team to see if they can use a nearby dam to provide their power needs. The problem is that the dam is in ape territory, and there are individuals on both sides that still hold very strong feelings for the other side.
This film is a very well done exploration of what it means to be a leader, and the challenges that leaders face. Caesar is not only confronted by human antagonists, but also by fellow apes, and his own values. This is paralleled in the human side as well. We see understanding, shared values, and comradeship between humans and between the apes, but also between a few of the humans and a few of the apes. Perhaps most remarkably, there are no villains. Every character is well established, and their actions stem from their belief that they are doing the best for themselves and their comrades.
However, the highlight of the film is the extensive filming on location in the wet and rain-soaked rain forests of Vancouver Island and the lower mainland. They are places that I grew up with, and are very familiar to me. It's something about the type of moss on the trees, the layers of underbrush in, under and around the trees, and the type of rain. I knew instantly how cold the actors ought to have been during filming, but also how invigorating being there must have felt. The sheer nostalgia of those shots more than made up for the disbelief-breaking gap caused by the recognition that the forests north of San Francisco look nothing like that!
Nevertheless, this is one of those rare films that one wished played a little bit longer because the characters, their motivations, the consequences of their actions, and the world-building has all been done so well.
While District 9 has resonances with 80's science-fiction action films, it is a rarity: it heads off into uncharted territory and creates a new, unique world of its own. Who'd have thought that there would be dimwitted spacefaring aliens who just happened to bumble upon Earth, without even the knowledge or capabilities to open their spaceship doors? And once they are on Earth, the best they can do—despite their advanced alien weaponry that they smuggled down with them—is to turn their internment camp into a slum? Nevermind the unanswered questions about where they came from, what they're doing on a spaceship, and whatever calamity happened to them, their slum situation and treatment on Earth is uniquely fascinating. Layered on top of that is a story about government-employed multinational companies that are more interested in making obscenely large profits than in preserving the morality of the country, let alone its laws.
Into the mix is thrown the antihero Wikus van de Merwe, who is completely out of his league when he is assigned to lead the evictions. Note that the name is a play on the South African Van Der Merwe jokes—their equivalent to stupid people who completely lack common sense. He is played pitch perfectly by Sharlto Copley as someone who, while constantly being self-serving, becomes more humane the more he transforms into an alien. Nevertheless, the central theme of the film is discrimination. As Chris Mikesell from the newspaper Ka Leo wrote: "Substitute 'black,' 'Asian,' 'Mexican,' 'illegal,' 'Jew,' 'white,' or any number of different labels for the word 'prawn' in this film, and you will hear the hidden truth behind the dialogue."
The film is an intriguing examination of video games. Specifically: how does reviving at your last save point with all the knowledge you've gained affect your subsequent actions? Tom Cruise hits the right notes as Cage as he constantly struggles with coming to terms with his situation, and finding a way out of it.
The highlight is Dir. Doug Liman's structuring of the film. He wisely jumps over some parts during the first few times we see Cage's day, later coming back to fill them in when it fits the needs of the story. While some scenes are necessarily repeated, they are either significantly changed by Cage's actions to make them unpredictably fun, or kept mercifully short so that the film never gets stale.
This is one of the rare films that does anime-style mecha right. Coupled with its intriguing science fiction concept, you'd be doing yourself a disservice to miss this film.
I really like 'near future' space travel and exploration films, so I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It's one of the more realistic space movies to come out in recent years, and even though it is aimed at the layman, it trusts in the intelligence of the audience. Alas, the film doesn't probe very deeply into many issues aside from the political side of operating a space agency. That is why I rank it moderately lower than "Interstellar"; a film that deeply probed the feelings of separation and loneliness that go hand in hand with space travel. But, to this film's credit, it does depict the title character struggling to stay in control and master his emotions—a very important part of being an astronaut—in the face of some truly terrifying circumstances.
I found the juxtaposition of disco music a bit jarring at times, however, it does feed into the narrative of Watney making the most of the things he finds himself surrounded with—not to mention subtly pointing out how music can be used to fight loneliness. It is also one of the steady sources of the humour that is sprinkled about this film. That humour making the film very accessible, the title character very relatable, and one of the film's highlights.
This movie left me with a lot to think about. However, it's a bit light on science-fact for my tastes (I'm a fan of Discovery and National Geographic space documentaries). Though, I admit that I'd probably get worn out by that level of discourse well within the 2 hour running time of this film.
I was challenged by the film in certain parts, and although it had a foregone conclusion, with this type of film its not so much the destination but the journey that is important. And above all else, aside from cheating a bit at the beginning to set up the scenario, the film never jumps the rails with unrealistic developments such as aliens, the supernatural, or an improbable number of 'accidents'—everything is well within the realm of plausibility, and all the more extreme actions that occur are based on logical conclusions.