Battle: Los Angeles
Metascore
37 out of 100

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 35 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 35
  3. Negative: 13 out of 35
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  1. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    Mar 12, 2011
    30
    Packed with gung ho war-movie clichés and subpar shock-and-awe visual effects, this terminally stupid sci-fi adventure pits an army of tentacled aliens piloting "Transformer"-style robots against a platoon of stoic warriors from the Fifth Marines' Second Battalion.
  2. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Mark Jenkins
    Mar 10, 2011
    38
    H.G. Wells did it better. This movie spends so much yawn-inducing time on variations of the same combat scenario that its final showdown feels rushed.
  3. Movieline
    Reviewed by: Michelle Orange
    Mar 10, 2011
    20
    It really is just sensory bombardment, and in two dimensions you have even less of a grasp of what's happening and of what you're looking at than the poor bastards on-screen.
  4. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    Mar 12, 2011
    20
    The shaky-cam as used in "Cloverfield" and the Paul Greengrass "Bourne" films, and in TV shows from "NYPD Blue" to "24" to "The Office," is worse than amateurism; it's fake amateurism, the visual equivalent of a comedian pretending to have Parkinson's.
  5. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    Mar 11, 2011
    38
    Don't mean to boast, but I can suspend my disbelief as willingly as any credulous moviegoer. Yet not even an industrial crane would have helped here.
  6. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    Mar 11, 2011
    38
    This silly extraterrestrial-invasion epic somehow manages the feat of making the destruction of La La Land seem tedious.
  7. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    Mar 10, 2011
    30
    As it lurches from Act II to Act III, Battle: Loss Angeles reveals itself to be a lousy movie.
  8. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    Mar 10, 2011
    25
    Except for the relentless, jittery way that the film has been photographed, there's nothing of interest going on in it. It's all fractious guerrilla-newsreel "style" masquerading a void.
  9. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: David Fear
    Mar 10, 2011
    20
    Fess up: You want to see Los Angeles get blowed up real good, and it's a measure of this movie's incompetence that it can't even deliver that vicarious thrill properly.
  10. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    Mar 10, 2011
    0
    This one isn't original, or even bearable. By its thudding end, audiences may wish they could be zapped from the theater to escape the buzzing in their ears.
  11. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    Mar 10, 2011
    33
    It's loud, relentless, and difficult to endure, capturing the experience of ground-level alien warfare with woeful verisimilitude.
  12. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    Mar 9, 2011
    12
    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.
  13. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Nick Schager
    Mar 9, 2011
    20
    Not a single arresting image is found amid the sci-fi rubble, though unintentional laughs eventually arrive courtesy of a cornball motivational speech by Eckhart's hero.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
5.8 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 493 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 126 out of 201
  2. Mixed: 27 out of 201
  3. Negative: 48 out of 201
  1. Flixtruth
    10
    Great movie!! If you like sci fi & action you should love this movie, if you don't like it you must be a critic! Their saying oh we have seen this all before..... right squads of aliens charging up the beaches in LA! Not sure I have seen that before! They have made about a million love stories but critics don't complain we had had enough of those. I was late opening night to see Star Wars in 1977 but still got a good seat because no one though it would be any good.......just saying… Full Review »
  2. airborne519
    10
    Great action/war/science fiction movie. As a Vet. I actually felt some of the old anxieties that the actors were trying to recreate. Nice job keeping the F-bomb to a minimum, language wasn't over the top. Good attention to detail with military protocol, although not a marine, it seemed accurate.
    What I liked about the enemy is that they weren't some uber over powered force whoopin our tail, like in that awful movie Independence Day... They were advanced, it was up to them to find a weakness...
    The action was about 95% of the movie. For an action/sci-fi movie, it's a 10, beacause it kept me entertained. I am not looking for an oscar winner, I went to this movie for action and it delivered 100%. Go see it on the big screen if you can!    … Full Review »
  3. marine215
    9
    People who give this movie below an 8 need to stop being pricks...its a great movie thats more than just a sci-fi thriller...its about being a marine and the pride that comes with it...Marines are out there fighting for out lives and people give them no credit...Marines Semper Fi… Full Review »
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