As I sat down to write this, I was messing around on Twitter and saw some chatter saying that this movie was “awful” and just plain bad.
First of all, it’s a movie about aliens coming and destroying us. You’re not going in to the theater expecting to see Jane Eyre. Suspend some disbelief!
Is the dialogue cheesy? Yes!
Do some things not make sense? Yes!
Does the movie have scenes during the day, then another scene at night, then we’re back to another scene during the day but it’s supposed to be taking place in mostly real-time? Yes!
Is the whole thing ridiculous? Yes!
But you know what? I liked it.
The movie opens and most of the world has already been attacked. San Diego? Done! The next big city that has yet to be taken down? Good ole LA. In fact, one of the first lines in the movie is: “We cannot lose Los Angeles.” And this is so true. Where will I get an almost weekly parking ticket from an expired meter if L.A. is destroyed?
Once we see what chaos and destruction we’re about to experience, we’re thrown back one day to see a calm L.A. (is L.A. ever calm?) and meet – in the first 10 minutes – what seems like a dozen cliché characters we don’t care about. In between these intro’s, we meet Aaron Eckhart’s SSgt. Michael Nantz. He’s a a Marine set to retire because of some residual effects of a battle in Afghanistan that killed some of his men. So, you know that’s gonna haunt him throughout the film because some of his troops might not make it to the end. But don’t worry, you’ll have no idea who they are or what their names are, you’ll just know they died in a very cool way.
After those long 10 minutes, we get to the real reason we came to see this: Aliens vs Marines. And we get that; Explosions, guns, the gutting of aliens (or is it Aliens? Do you capitalize the ‘A’?) and more explosions! And more guns!
What’s not to like?
If you’re in the mood for some fun, mindless entertainment you really can’t go wrong watching this.
Oh, and what did I learn from this movie? If aliens come down to our planet, we’re screwed. Unless, that is, we have Aaron Eckhart leading our troops.
