Saw this tonight and it's actually not bad at all. It's a lot like the old B movies, with recognizable faces and a predictable plot, but that's not bad. It's also the only pure war movie I've seen for a while. Take one measure of War of the Worlds, one of Independence Day and one of Saving Private Ryan, lots of crashing and blowing up, sweat and grit, patriotic speeches and you've got an adrenalin-rushing Marine Guts film.
There's no subtlety, no sophistication and little in the way of erudite plot exposition. You get right down to blasting and being blasted by ET's in the first second of the movie and it never lets up until the end. You never forget who the good guys are...it's just a battle for survival in the deadliest battlefield imaginable. This movie could have been about Antietam, The Somme or Iwo Jima but it's aliens in LA. It works because they never get ironic. If this were to happen, the real Marines would like to be seen like they are in the movie.
Much of it is filmed in the Private Ryan, close up, shaky-cam, grainy style. The aliens are sufficiently faceless that you only want to kill, kill, kill the bas*ards. When I first heard of somebody making a movie by alluding to the WW II event referred to as the "Battle of Los Angeles" (an early UFO event), I feared the worst, but this was a good thrill ride.
