Battle of Los Angeles

The Asylum / Peacock Films

R4 DVD

The Asylum has a record of budget remakes of big name films, but this one really hits the bottom. Yet it has a dreadful fascination. Forget that it’s supposed to be scifi and look at it as a schlock action thriller with a SF background, and surprisingly it works well.

The plot, such as it is: In 1942 a U.S. pilot and his Corsair aircraft were kidnapped by aliens. In return the U.S. captured one of the aliens. Think Roswell and all that stuff. Now the aliens are back for their buddy and they are not happy. Their huge spaceship hangs over LA, just like the one in the great South African film District 9. The Air Force, being the Air Force, promptly tries to shoot it down. Lots of fighting. It destroys anything sent against it then releases small fighting ships that destroy every piece of technology they come up against. Anything transistorised is destroyed, but ham radios are unaffected since “they use vacuum tubes.” Huh? How long ago? The only vehicles that still run are also rewired for vacuum tubes. Huh again???

The out-of-date pilot returns to his old airfield and the remaining soldiers are told to take him to “Sector 7” for debriefing. Think Roswell again, but for some reason buried under ruined buildings. The captured alien is also kept here. They hope the returned pilot may be able to tell them how to destroy the aliens but he has a surprise for them. The little group of survivors is helped to get there by a sword-wielding female ninja Army captain. Her sword can penetrate the armour of the little fighters, although bullets can’t. I’m running out of “Huh?”.

Lots of fighting follows. I particularly liked the alien machine that can catch a grenade and lob it right back. The leechlike aliens are killed (lots of fighting) and their ship crashes into San Francisco, therefore carrying out some much-needed civic improvement. It all ends happily ever after, naturally.

The plot is ludicrous and incoherent, the acting is dreadful, the CGI is dodgy. It is huge fun, as is picking the plot elements pinched from other films. That’s about all you will have to use your brain for. If you enjoyed the Sci-Fi flicks of the sixties and seventies, you will love this one. Switch your disbelief off, sit back, and enjoy the action.

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