Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

“Battle: Los Angeles” is a B-popcorn flick on mega-steroids, proudly patriotic, with an enemy that deserves every bullet coming at them. Dig it: High-tech monsters go for an all-out attack on Earth, and battle a platoon of U.S. Marines. Our heroes kick ass. Explosions galore! Gallant speeches! Self-sacrifices! Flag salutes! But “Battle” is a loud, obnoxiously edited rat-a-tat video game that serves up a headache, and things really get ugly when people speak. At one point, our main hero (Aaron Eckhart) gives one of those teary “I lost men” speeches and he says the names of his fallen men “stick in (his) head like a bad joke,” and the movie just vaporizes. I had to laugh. The devastated L.A. cityscapes thrill, but the aliens are badly rendered with Big Lots CGI that looks fuzzy, and I never forgot these actors are pretending to blow shit up, and not very well. This is “District 9” and “Monsters” for dummies, a pale child of “Aliens” and 100 other better films. C-