Battle of Los Angeles, or BOLA as no one has ever called it, is one of The Asylum’s ‘mockbuster’ movies, based around, of course, Battle: Los Angeles – where an invading alien force piss everyone off by twatting Tinsel Town.
You remember Independence Day, yeah? Where there’s a build up before the huge alien craft hovers over the world’s cities? It bought a bit of character building into the film, so that when the characters are in peril, the viewer will feel emotionally attached. It’s a pretty basic film technique.
The writers of Battle of Los Angeles thought fuck that and start the film with a big alien ship hovering over LA, before swatting away some fighter jets like they were midges – before apparently wiping out downtown LA with a mix of blue ‘stuff’ and CGI explosions. A few fighter jets are ripped apart and some alien fighter jets also appear for no real reason.
Cut to a military base “just north of LA”, with everyone looking very concerned and running around. We are then treated to a really odd scene. The pilots, of which there appears to only be two, jump in their planes, but the lad is struck my nerves and can’t move. Meanwhile the other pilot, a rather bitchy girl whines away. All the time, a old general is stand in what looks like a ‘Baywatch’ style beach tower, yelling obscenities down the radio to him.
Phrases like “I’m going come down there is a real attitude if you don’t shift your ass boy” and “I’m going to blow your brains out if you don’t move”. That’s honestly what they say and I have literally no idea what’s going on. What am I meant to feel? Sorrow for the male pilot? I don’t – his city is being attacked and he’s being a douche. I don’t know if the old general is always a twat or if we’re meant to like him.
For fun, I decide to back the aliens, and sure enough a few of their fights come along to blow most of the planes to shit. The Earth ranks stock up on guns ready to dole out some little green man based ass-kicking.
The general is apparently the hero, as he carries an injured solider to a medic and orders everyone to get under cover, before wheeling out his pistol and firing at the alien UFOs, before hurriedly fucking off. Suddenly what appears to be a spitfire lands and a pilot dressed in World War 2 garb gets out and joins in with the new military tactic “running away.”
Turns out the WW2 pilot, Rodgers, was part of the Battle of Los Angeles, a real-life military event in 1942 rumoured to be an alien encounter. Ah OK. So the pilot was sent on a reconnaissance mission and somehow got lost in time. Crikey – that’s a shock to him. Good that the general then said “Do you know what year this is son? I just hope you didn’t have a fiancé waiting for you because…ah shit.”
Back we go to Bitchy and Shitty Pilots, now being followed by green glowing dots. Our crap pilot starts to panic again. Then again, one of the dots does enter his cockpit, and not in a good way. He then got into a trance and the only dialogue for a good minute or so is Whiney Pilot says “ARNSTEAD?” over and over. I really hope these two cop it. My prayers are nearly answered when an alien jet “engages” (that’s the PROPER word for that shit) with her. She bails out and the cockpit roof smashes into the chasing jet causing it to “explode”. I say explode – we’re shown the pilot floating against a green screen while a light is turn on and off quickly off the camera. “WOO! That’s right -that’s how we do! WOO”. Seriously, “that’s how we do”. No idea what happens to the crap pilot. Is he dead? Or just ‘taken’? Who cares?
Back to the army, who are sneaking around a wrecked street strewn with bodies and poorly packed cars. The commanding officer heads forward alone to go and investigate what appears to be a metal dustbin crossed with a one-armed bandit. It whirls and jutters on the spot, so the commander, remembering that he has literally no idea what the hell it is, throws a grenade at it from all of two yards away. Dusty Bin hilariously catches the grenade and lobs it back. The commander does a piss poor roll away, before it blows up with an explosion that probably wouldn’t take out a Wendy house. Of course, rather than rolling away from the Bin or behind another car, he rolls into clear sight and is shot, as is one of the other soliders as they maraud to help the injured leader.
They hatch a plan of rolling a car to it while hiding behind. The Bin can’t hit them for shit and they shunt the car into it. Their plan is then put on the back burner as one of them decides to lob another grenade, but this time do it so that the fuse runs out just as The Bin catches it. We think that’s worked. But we go to the leader and his dying breaths. They all look upset, but as we met him five minutes ago no fuck is given.
There only two soldiers and the time traveller left, then are no in another wrecked place. No idea if it’s LA, a town or “Sector 7″ which is where they were ordered to take Marty McFly. Bitchy Pilot just happens to be there, dodging enemy fire and doing cartwheels while being chased by a smaller drone thing. It’s shit and can’t hit any one despite them walking around like they’re at a fucking village fete.
The ol’ grenade plan is unfurled once more, but a random woman appears with a samurai sword and thinks “to hell with the ability to walk” and jumps off a 20ft high roof onto the drone, ramming the sword into its, er, engine? I guess. Oh, she’s fine, and walks off casually while the thing explodes behind her – it’s fucking shite. You’d at least glance back or something. She walks a good 50ft and then is next to the guy who was about to use the grenade, despite him being next to her when she fucked up the alien thing. Ah fuck it. Oh, she’s in the army too…in her blue jumpsuit.
It’s just dawned on me that we have seen no civilians yet, except the three dead ones by the Bin. I have literally no idea if LA’s 4 million people are dead, were evacuated, alive but abducted – not a clue. Anyway, she leads them off but orders them to hide when she hears something before going all Kill Bill on us again. She takes out 8 of the balls from Pokemon that fly towards her. This alien technology is rubbish.
Back to our old general who is still persistently trying to shoot the alien jets down with a handgun, like some mad grandad shooting cats from his patio. It appears to have worked though when the jet crashes right in front of him. Johnny 5′s cock-extension reaches out, and the general shots that too, yeah! YEAH! Before grabbing it and using it as a gun. Stroke of luck that the aliens’ guns have a trigger, and a sight and barrel like earth guns isn’t it? He takes out another fighter jet with it. And smugly smiles, before realising a good 10 seconds to late that it was on course to smash into his stupid face. Which it does.
Kill Bill is still leading some goons around and they reach their destination just as dozes of CGI alien crafts fire at them, badly. They dive into Sector 7 – or an aircraft hanger as us proles would call it. Underground they go, where they hand over their weapons in the most aggressive way imaginable, like a bunch of twattish kids told to share their toys, despite Kill Bill saying that their ammo will be replenished. I hate pretty much every character in this film. I’ve got sympathy or attachment to any of them – bunch of dicks, apart from maybe the WWII guy.
We meet the commanding officer who wants to de-brief McFly – but McFly has other ideas as he has a message that he needs to give him “NOW!”. Suddenly, he’s a wanker too.
“Colonel, if your people do not release the one they’re holding captive they will never stop.”
The Colonel plays dumb, claiming to have no idea what he’s talking about.
“Who do they want back?”
“The one you call GUUU BLUUR”
Seriously, he just made a noise – that’s the best possible way of spelling it. Oh, turns out he can speak their language. Yeah, OK. The Colonel and Kill Bill discuss getting him to talk to their prisoner. The Colonel isn’t keen on that idea – but they go for it anyway. But after that he talks to it he can never leave. OH NO! Oh, wait. Who cares? Hang on, why can’t he leave? Because it’s an alien? There’s a whole fucking fleet over LA – it’s really a secret any more.
Kull Bull
“One more thing, does anyone have any Reece’s Pieces? Damn thing loves them” is the finest product placement line ever uttered on camera, before they go to meet GUU BLUUUR.
They walk into a observation room but can’t see the alien, bar a rubber, three-fingered hand and the mumbled sounds of a drunk Polishman talking into a bottlebank. Rodgers steps upto the mic, composing himself, being screeching like a banshee for ages, causing everyone else’s ears to bleed. He punches out the Colonel and his wail breaks the glass to the alien’s room, before he jumps down into ET’s hold. Shit just got real.
Two guys with guns storm in the survey the space, which is dark and inexplicably filled with smoke. Two spindly arms reach out and dragged from into the abyss too. Kill Bill gets her sword out ready. What appears to be facehugger from Alien flies past and her and hits some poor sod, before Rodgers pops up again. He’s riddled with machine gun immediately, but he’s apparently Stretch Armstong, he reaches out and, I think, kills two more guys with guns. Kill Bill goes for a hit, but Rodgers spits some green stuff at her. Undettered she whips he sword at his neck, taking his head clean off.
Rodgers now decapitated head opens up from the face and a robotic ball thing flies out and melts its way through the ceiling. I don’t know if the actual alien is still in the room, or if it became Rodgers, or the ball, or why I’m still watching. I think the facehugger thing was the alien… but it’s such a shoddy film that you couldn’t tell if it was human or not.
They out run it to the second floor, where it appears in the middle of the circle they’ve made. Which is a shit idea, as now they can’t shoot it without killing each other. It’s of no consequence anyway, as it simply flies through one the soldier’s chests – who accidentally shot Bitchy Pilot.
Ah, it WAS the alien, who is utterly stuff about the mothership while looking like Admiral Akbar’s foetus. He wants the remaining soldier to fly his ship. And then dies. What the fuck is happening is anyone’s guess. They get into the back of a truck and drive off. Tyler, the army guy who I swear is named for the first time now, gets an alien gun and shots from the top of the vehicle. There is an extraordinary bit, where the internal shot is of Kill Bill turning left, but the external shot shows the truck going right. Jesus.
They reach the alien jet that Tyler has to fly, for some reason. He sits down and it appears to use an Xbox Kinect to work. He soon picks it up and they off and OH LOOK THE BIG SHIP OVER LA! I forgot about that! He takes on a few hundred alien ships. He decides to fly “at lightspeed” into the mother ship, before coming to a stop in the belly of the ship. Now, the speed of light is 180,000 miles per second. He flies through the ship “at lightspeed” for about 5 seconds. That means the belly of the ship is 900,000 miles in. Well, it doesnt, because NOTHING OF THIS MAKES SENSE.
After clusterfucking their way around the ship, making as much noise as humanely possible, they encounter a cross between a dragon and the things from Tremors. Man, Tremors is ace. I wish I was watching Tremors.
The thing eats Bitchy Pilot, before Kill Bill lops off a tentacle, and Tyler drops a bomb into its mouth. It collapses and that somehow destroys the entire fucking mothership. OH WAIT RODGERS IS BACK! Head reattached and Go Go Gadget arms a plenty. Tyler makes light of it though and that scene seemed pointless. I mean why bother? Why?
Apparently they can’t fly out of the ship. Ah well, thems the breaks I guess. Holy shit, I’ve just realised that Tyler is played by Kel from Kenan and Kel! That’s literally the only thing worth noting about this film.
The mothership smashes to earth, Kel and Kill Bill are alive, LA is fucked though.
End of the film. I genuinely don’t understand a single thing that took place. Not a single plot turn or explanation was worth bothering with an I couldn’t care less about a single person in the entire TWO HOUR film.
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But surely having Michelle Rodriguez in it makes up for everything else?!