On the "Battle: Los Angeles" Divide

“Battle: Los Angeles is noisy, violent, ugly and stupid. Its manufacture is a reflection of appalling cynicism on the part of its makers, who don't even try to make it more than senseless chaos. Here's a science-fiction film that's an insult to the words ‘science’ and ‘fiction,’ and the hyphen in between them. You want to cut it up to clean under your fingernails.”

 “Young men: If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots. Young women: If your date likes this movie, tell him you've been thinking it over, and you think you should consider spending some time apart.”

Both of these quotes come from Roger Ebert’s unusually scathing review of Battle: Los Angeles, the alien invasion/war movie which has been adored by its target demographic yet eviscerated by a great many critics. Some (Ebert included) have cited Battle: LA as further evidence that the world of cinema needs to be cleansed in a fashion comparable to Sodom and Gomorrah. If this is what we accept as entertainment, what does it say about our culture? Have we become so desensitized to such relentless violence and oppressive action that we now find this to be an enjoyable time at the movies?

Well, let me put it this way: Those who have chosen Battle: Los Angeles as a signifier of the downfall of civilization need to calm down for a minute. Battle: Los Angeles is a bad movie, but it did not offend me, nor do I think it’s all that important. In a way, I think they’re giving the film too much credit. It’s a formulaic action movie that is far too loud and oppressive to be entertaining. As a film, Battle: Los Angeles is a failure.

Yet, this is just, like, my opinion, man. I’ve made no secret of my endless admiration of Roger Ebert, but his referring to all who may enjoy Battle: Los Angeles as “idiots” is off-base. It’s one thing to write a scathing review of a movie; it’s another to insult the audience who pays to see it. I saw Battle: Los Angeles with a friend of mine who I consider to be much smarter than myself. He very much enjoyed the film, and I very much didn’t. Yet I maintain that he is the more intelligent human being, and I did not inform him that he is an idiot. Insulting anyone who might enjoy a movie is normally the pastime of critics like Armond White, not Roger Ebert. Obviously, Ebert is the far superior critic, but when you start belittling the intelligence of someone because they liked a movie you’re going down a dangerous road.

Intelligence has very little to do with enjoying movies. No one can be judged as stupid simply because they enjoyed or disliked a movie. I loved Inception, as did many others. However, Christopher Nolan’s film has a great many detractors. These people are not inherently dumb because they could not enjoy the film. They just approach the medium of film in a different way than I do. Same goes for Battle: Los Angeles. Audiences, by and large, enjoyed the film, but that is because they want different things from movies than I do. Battle: Los Angeles is a dumb movie. That cannot be argued. That doesn’t mean it can only be enjoyed by dumb people.

Battle: Los Angeles is not a film that can be debated at great length. Either you go along with it or you don’t. This past week’s episode of the /Filmcast (always recommended listening) made a noble attempt at such a discussion, but so different were the reactions to the film that it sounded like each of the co-hosts saw a different movie. Adam Quigley was the only one who hated the film, while David Chen, Devindra Hardawar and guest Dan Trachtenberg all enjoyed it for what it was. Quigley seemed to find flaws in every frame of the film, while the three supporters disagreed with every point. Even the quality of the special effects (something you’d think to be indisputable) was put on trial. Where Quigley thought the film was inept, Chen, Hardawar and Trachtenberg all thought it was dumb yet well-made. They might as well have been talking to each other in a foreign language.

Battle: Los Angeles isn’t all that interesting a movie. The divide in opinion amongst those who have seen it is far more fascinating. It has nothing to do with intelligence; it has more to do with how one watches and digests a movie. I did not enjoy it, many critics clearly did not enjoy it, but a great many other people did. Who am I to take away from someone’s enjoyment of a film? As long as it’s not a snuff film, you’re allowed to enjoy whatever you want and you will get no judgment from me (at least none that I will verbalize). Just as people have different taste in food; people have different taste in movies. So it always was, and so it always will be. If one person was right, the whole medium would be a whole lot less interesting.