Alien invasions are nothing special (in film). World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles wanted to offer something new in the science fiction subgenre. The 70 million blockbuster, which grossed over 200 million worldwide in 2011, combined the attack from space with the up-close realism of recent war films. It was on TV on Friday and you can catch up on it via stream.
Stream now: That’s what the science fiction film is about
An alien invasion is being recorded all over the earth. Los Angeles is among the last global cities still able to fight against the invaders. World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles follows a group of marines as they fight against a menacing alien presence.
Director Jonathan Liebesman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) aimed for the equivalent of an FSK-12 rating, but based the look of his film on tough war films and thrillers. His cinematic models were Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Paul Greengrass’ 9/11 factual thriller Flight 93. He crosses the invasion story à la Independence Day with a quasi-documentary one Shaky camera look designed to put you right in the middle of the action and make the military defense against aliens look realistic.
Sony
Aaron Eckhart in World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles
The result was not particularly well received by critics. While some at least praised the action scenes of the otherwise schematically told film, critic Roger Ebert wrote in 2011 with his usual reserve:
Battle: Los Angeles is loud, violent, ugly and stupid. Its creation reflects a shocking cynicism on the part of its creators, who don’t even attempt to make it anything more than pointless chaos. Here we have a science fiction film that… Insult for the words ‘science’ and ‘fiction’ and the hyphen between them. This is how you can watch World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles
World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles was released on Broadcast on April 12th at 10:20 p.m. on RTL 2. Alternatively, you can stream the film on WOW and the Amazon channel Filmtastic.