THE COUGH COUGH STORY: If the laziness of The Asylum and their self-proclaimed “mockbusters” wasn’t already utterly clear with movies like TRANSMORPHERS and H.G. WELLS’ WAR OF THE WORLDS, it becomes crystal with BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES, a movie so bereft of intelligence that it’s quite obvious that the filmmakers (is that the right term for these people?) didn’t even know what the movie they were ripping off was about. Battle of Los Angeles starts off like a pre-viz scene from ID4 that never saw the light of day; indeed, it’s very much more inspired by ID4 than BATTLE: LA, although it goes off on its own spastic tangents eventually, as most Asylum movies will. These include time travel, ninja ladies, aliens disguised as human robots – or robot humans – and a spaceship harvesting human slaves. Something like that.
That’s what I call explosive gas…
I’ll be honest here: I didn’t know what the fuck was going on in BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES. Either The Asylum finally figured out a way to make a movie that outsmarts its audience, or it’s their worst movie to date, seemingly written on the spot by teenagers. Action sequences start and stop, half-baked ideas aren’t even half baked before they’re thrown against the wall, and when in doubt, as always, they just use the same footage of a spaceship swirling around in the sky over and over again. It’s a humbling experience, as you can only hold yourself and contemplate the meaning of life.
Oh, it should be mentioned that never once does any location in this movie resemble Los Angeles. They don’t even try.
ARE YOU SERIOUS? On the whole, BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES plays this pretty straight, although it’s such a buffoonish enterprise that it’s not always easy to tell. No one hams it up too badly, other than the writers.
MONSTER 411: Mostly we just have to look at spaceships and such, terrible looking as they are, but we eventually get to see some extraterrestrial action. One alien is holed up in an Area 51-esque bunker but he just looks like something that was bought in a costume shop. Another, villainous alien looks like a tentacled snail. As this is The Asylum, and they obviously spend more money on hard liquor than they do on their visual effects budget, these are bad. Really bad, even by their truly low standards.
This is their way of giving us the finger. Us, the audience.
PAYCHECK ACTING: You might – might – recognize Nia Peeples, who was something of a name back in the early 80s. I guess this can’t be considered a large step down for her. Kel Mitchell shows up, and if anyone remembers him fondly from the 90s when he was part of the Kenan and Kel comedy duo, well, this will be a wake-up call. The man is now dead inside.
RIP OFF QUOTA: Everything under the sun: ID4, BATTLE: LA, COWBOYS AND ALIENS (yes, they steal a shot from the trailer), WAR OF THE WORLDS and more. There’s even a terribly lame Reeces Pieces joke.
HOE DOWN: Peeples looks pretty good wielding a blade, and the skintight suit doesn’t hurt. You’ll even hesitate to ask why is she wearing that? Theresa June Tao plays a scrappy badass, but there’s really nothing of value to watching her, since she’s so irritating.
Nia strikes the “woe is me” pose. Can’t really blame her.
WRAP UP: Dreadful beyond reason, BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES had a very hard time keeping me even slightly interested. To be honest, it took me three viewings to even finish it, so loathe was I to expose myself to it for long periods of time. It’s this kind of atrocity that gives “so bad it’s good” movies a bad name… Maybe because it’s “so bad it’s soul crushing”.
RATING: 1 out of 4
SO BAD IT’S GOOD RATING 1 out of 4
The comment section exists to allow readers to discuss the article constructively and respectfully, focused on the topic at hand.
What’s Not Allowed