Although it's clearly The Asylum's take on the mega-budgeted studio movie BATTLE: LOS ANGELES (playing at my local multi-plex as I type these words), BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES' primary template is actually INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996): within the first four minutes of the film, a two mile-wide circular spacecraft has descended out of the heavens to hover menacingly above LA's skyscrapers, proceeded to devastate the city with an expanding burst of energy, then disgorged waves of saucer-shaped fighters that attack all of the military bases nearby. However, the movie that BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES most reminds me of is Neil Marshall's DOOMSDAY (2007). Just as that film was packed full of homages to the various genre movies that Marshall grew up watching during the Eighties, so director/scriptwriter Mark Atkins' BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES contains numerous references to sci-fi films produced up until the late Nineties. There are nods towards WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953), TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, SCREAMERS, MEN IN BLACK and even STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.
In terms of narrative, Atkins piles incident upon incident, resulting in a mad meld of aerial dogfights, immense property damage, mind-controlling foo fighters, alien drones of all shapes & sizes, time-displaced WWII pilots, references to the actual 'Battle of Los Angeles' (a real-life UFO incident that occurred in February 1942), city-wide electrical/magnetic pulses, Majestic 12, shape-shifting robot assassins, vehicles retro-engineered using Roswell technology, journeys at light speed, and a climatic confrontation with a Lovecraftian alien king. It's like watching an entire cliffhanger serial in a single viewing. And just when you think things can't get any more bonkers, Nia Peeples drops in on the action (literally) as a MJ-12 agent clad in a skin-tight blue catsuit, dispatching alien drones with a katana.
The extensive CGI used throughout the film ranges in quality, from being as impressive as you'd expect to see in a bigger-budgeted movie, to decidedly dodgy. But on the whole, it passes muster.
I can't say, in all honesty, that BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES is actually a 'good' film, in the conventional sense. And I'd hesitate before recommending it to anyone else. But speaking for myself, I thought it was an absolute blast and I enjoyed it immensely. It stands alongside MERLIN AND THE WAR OF THE DRAGONS and SHERLOCK HOLMES as one of the best movies produced by The Asylum so far.
In terms of narrative, Atkins piles incident upon incident, resulting in a mad meld of aerial dogfights, immense property damage, mind-controlling foo fighters, alien drones of all shapes & sizes, time-displaced WWII pilots, references to the actual 'Battle of Los Angeles' (a real-life UFO incident that occurred in February 1942), city-wide electrical/magnetic pulses, Majestic 12, shape-shifting robot assassins, vehicles retro-engineered using Roswell technology, journeys at light speed, and a climatic confrontation with a Lovecraftian alien king. It's like watching an entire cliffhanger serial in a single viewing. And just when you think things can't get any more bonkers, Nia Peeples drops in on the action (literally) as a MJ-12 agent clad in a skin-tight blue catsuit, dispatching alien drones with a katana.
The extensive CGI used throughout the film ranges in quality, from being as impressive as you'd expect to see in a bigger-budgeted movie, to decidedly dodgy. But on the whole, it passes muster.
I can't say, in all honesty, that BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES is actually a 'good' film, in the conventional sense. And I'd hesitate before recommending it to anyone else. But speaking for myself, I thought it was an absolute blast and I enjoyed it immensely. It stands alongside MERLIN AND THE WAR OF THE DRAGONS and SHERLOCK HOLMES as one of the best movies produced by The Asylum so far.