TheRetroCritic

As both our polls finally end, I can now reveal that the film joining Captain America (voted Best Film Of 2011) in the Hall Of Fame (& Shame) as Worst Film Of 2011 is... BATTLE: LOS ANGELES   The faithful followers & visitors of the RetroCritic blog have voted and chosen... MY own pick for Worst Film Of 2011... Go figure! And no, I didn't vote several times. Believe it or not, more people disliked Battle: LA than Sucker Punch , Transformers 3 AND Alvin & The Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked . I'm guessing most skipped that last one. But what makes this Aaron Eckhart-starring sci-fi war flick so hard to get behind? Well, for one thing the awesome trailer was about as misleading as it gets: it promised tons of exciting action, loads of suspense, ground-breaking special effects, an interesting, gritty take on the familiar alien invasion plot and strong performances. But noooooo. Fuck that shit! Lets plow through sand with Team Douchebag for two hours on the offc

Alien invasion disaster movies have always been a hit-and-miss affair. From the old Earth vs The Flying Saucers -type B movies to more recent big budget efforts like Independence Day . You'd think such a simple concept would be pretty straight-forward and easy to get right. Not so. Unfortunately Battle: LA, like so many similar films before it, fails to deliver. Instead we are given a kind of B-side cliched war flick with rubbish District 9 -style aliens thrown in. Earlier this year we had the awful Skyline in the same vein and although Battle: LA isn't qute as dire, it's still pretty poor all around. It's like the film contains all the shittest cliches and flaws which made Independence Day so cheesy but minus Jeff Goldblum, Randy Quaid and ANY sense of fun whatsoever. What's left? Not very much alas. Early on we're introduced to the film's main characters: a bunch of Marines, who are about as likeable and interesting as the plastic chair I'm c