Film - Battle: Los Angeles

Took 14-year-old and almost-twelve-year-old to see this earlier on. Youngest son chose it for his birthday treat. The review promised something like "non-stop action" so frankly I was dreading it. Took along a note-book and an mp3 player in case I seriously couldn't stand it.

I actually enjoyed it. Very heavy-handed with the shaky-camera business - I did wonder at one point if I was going to be ill - and plundered quite a lot of clichés so freely that a lot of it was predictable, but on balance, it worked very well. Good scene-setting at the beginning, reasonable character differentiation, excellent and relentless tension, and no crowbarred-in love scenes. In fact, no love scenes at all, which was refreshing.

I would never have chosen this film, and in fact the cinema was only 25% full at our showing (5:30pm), but I totally do not feel I wasted my afternoon.Only thing was, I was so wired by the end of it, it took me about half an hour to get my head straight afterwards. Which I guess is how you'd feel if you'd just been through what the characters had been through, so there's a recommendation in itself.

Film - Battle: Los Angeles

Took 14-year-old and almost-twelve-year-old to see this earlier on. Youngest son chose it for his birthday treat. The review promised something like "non-stop action" so frankly I was dreading it. Took along a note-book and an mp3 player in case I seriously couldn't stand it.

I actually enjoyed it. Very heavy-handed with the shaky-camera business - I did wonder at one point if I was going to be ill - and plundered quite a lot of clichés so freely that a lot of it was predictable, but on balance, it worked very well. Good scene-setting at the beginning, reasonable character differentiation, excellent and relentless tension, and no crowbarred-in love scenes. In fact, no love scenes at all, which was refreshing.

I would never have chosen this film, and in fact the cinema was only 25% full at our showing (5:30pm), but I totally do not feel I wasted my afternoon.Only thing was, I was so wired by the end of it, it took me about half an hour to get my head straight afterwards. Which I guess is how you'd feel if you'd just been through what the characters had been through, so there's a recommendation in itself.