FILM REVIEW OF ''BATTLE: LOS ANGELES'' (2011)

If the tenacious enemy the U.S. Marines tangle with in director Jonathan Liebesman’s “Battle: Los Angeles” (*** out of ****) didn’t come from another planet, then this above-average PG-13 rated Columbia Pictures’ release wouldn’t qualify as a science fiction shoot‘em up. As it is, “Battle: Los Angeles” amounts to marginal sci-fi. The guys who wrote and directed this suspenseful but straightforward 116-minute saga strive for adrenaline-laced realism. They aren’t out to imitate the outlandish audacity of “Skyline” with its “Cloverfield” style monsters trashing a coastal metropolis. Ostensibly, “Battle: Los Angeles” seems like a Marine recruiting video. The scarcity of memorable characters and scene-stealing aliens are offset by its splendid computer generated special effects and Aaron Eckhart’s bravura performance.

Like last year’s “Skyline” and many sci-fi films dating to 1951’s “The Thing From Another World,” “Battle: Los Angeles” shows aliens plunging into the Earth in meteors that turn out to be spacecraft. Unlike “Skyline,” Liebesman’s movie boasts aliens that lack reptilian features with tentacles galore. Instead, the enemy look like the “Star Wars” storm troopers. Herein lies the chief problem that “Battle: Los Angeles” faces. Since it doesn’t look like your typical sci-fi tale and the filmmakers give the extraterrestrials the short shrift, many moviegoers and critics are maligning it without mercy No, “Battle: Los Angeles” neither wallows in political allegories like “District 9” nor does it assemble a speculative arsenal of weapons to destroy the enemy as in “Independence Day.” “Battle: Los Angeles” looks more like “Black Hawk Down.” You wind up caring more about the human characters. Nevertheless, you develop considerable respect for the pugnacious aliens. They track down and kill both civilians and military alike by targeting mobile radio and telephone communication. Unlike “Skyline,” “Battle: Los Angeles” concludes with greater optimism. Basically, this movie celebrates male camaraderie as well as the indomitable human spirit of survival.

After a false start that depicts the devastation the aliens have wrought around the globe, the action flashes back to the hours before the catastrophic invasion. During this prologue, Liebesman and "The General's Daughter" scenarist Christopher Bertolini introduce a number of young Marines and their leaders. Except for a few high-ranking officers, the Marines here are grunts on the ground. Aside from their platoon commander, these Marines are the followers who wind up leading the way. As the protagonist, veteran Marine Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart of "The Dark Knight") has served 20 years in the Corps. Nantz wants to retire because his last campaign in Iraq turned bittersweet when he lost several leathernecks but received a Silver Star for valor. Not surprisingly, Nantz doesn't care about the commendation. Moreover, the memories of the men that died under his command haunt him. Naturally, when the meteors start falling, the Pentagon deploys the Marines from Camp Pendleton, and Nantz finds himself reassigned to Echo Company, 2nd battalion, 5th Marine regiment. Predictably, there is a rumble in the ranks about Nantz's gung-ho attitude, and the young Marines believe that he will treat them like cannon fodder. Indeed, Nantz behaves like 'John Wayne' in one scene, and his company commander, 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez (Ramón Rodríguez of "Pride and Glory"), orders him to knock off the heroics.

Meanwhile, Liebesman and Bertolini parcel out only piecemeal information about the aliens. They crave water and exploit it as a source of energy. Their blitzkrieg blankets the globe, and they are aggressively trouncing mankind. Indeed, Los Angeles resembles Beirut. Television news bulletins provide the modicum of information that mankind knows about these pugnacious intruders. None of it is useful to the Marines who must eradicate these miscreants. Initially, Nantz and his platoon are dispatched to an abandoned Santa Monica police station to rescue a group of civilians and then escort them to a forward operating base to await evacuation. Martinez's superiors warn him he has 3 hours to complete his mission before the Air Force obliterates everything in sight. In some way, "Battle: Los Angeles" is like "Aliens" as these smug Marines lock and load for action. The attitude change that comes over them after their first encounter with the enemy is dramatic. Initially, they desperately lack cohesion. Only after they acquire cohesion do they come together as a unit and experience success.

“Battle: Los Angeles” differs from “Independence Day” and the “Transformers” movies because it shuns the multiple levels of characters that those films contain. Typically, sci-fi movies have scientists struggling to figure out how to kill the alien invaders while the politicians scramble to placate the public that everything is being done to accomplish this goal. Eventually, when the politicians and the scientists get a clue, they pass it along to the military and the killing commences. “Battle: Los Angeles” confines its action to the Marines on the ground. Since the Marines can only see what is around them, the film resembles a first-person shooter videogame. The aliens never get up close and personal as in a “Predator” movie. “Battle: Los Angeles” isn’t a horror movie. Occasionally, a soldier is dragged by the feet into foliage and killed. Primarily, these aliens are like marauding Apaches that rely on stealth to strike. Moreover, they can be killed. Eventually, when the Marines run into greater numbers of aliens, “Battle: Los Angeles” settles down to conventional close-quarters combat. Incredibly enough, most of "Battle: Los Angeles" was lensed on location in Louisiana!

FILM REVIEW OF "DOOM'' (2005)

As the latest entry in the video game inspired action movie genre, "Doom" (* out of ****) more than lives up to its nihilistic promise. Nothing about director Andrzej Bartkowski's tame science fiction thriller proves either original or exciting. Basically, the monsters amount to genetically mutated humanoids that not only appear ghoulish (what glimpses we catch of them) but also whose skeletal carcasses are covered with raspberry jam-like gore. In other words, the people that made "Doom" settled for lowest common denominator chills. Exotic alien predators don't prowl this mediocre melodrama that ranks as an all new career low for former WWE wrestling champ Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson. Okay, these monsters might frighten those under age twelve or women dragged to this drivel on a date, but blood & terror gorehounds will yawn at these murderous, run-of-the-mill fiends. For the record, these carnivores consist of either ancient Martians or zombies.

Nevertheless, "Doom" rightly deserved its R-rating for the amounts of blood, gore, and mayhem that saturate its occasionally atmospheric but wholly predictable plot. No, this dull, formulaic movie won't induce nightmares. Based on the popular first-person shooter video game where players assume the identity of an armed psychopath on a shooting spree, "Doom" recycles material from better movies, such as the "Resident Evil" epics, "Alien," (1979) and "Stargate"(1994). The best of the few surprises in "Doom" occurs as a twist near the end but it may alienate fans who revere the Rock.

Noisy, rambunctious, darkly shadowed, sporadically profane, but entirely idiotic, "Doom" follows a squad of macho U.S. Marines dispatched to the planet Mars. Their orders call for them to contain a security breach at a privately owned research institute and retrieve top secret company records. Some exposition is required to bring non-video gamers up to speed about this intergalactic gobbledygook set in the year 2046. According to freshman scenarist David Callaham and co-writer Wesley ("Cape Fear") Strick's cliché-riddled screenplay, archeologists uncovered a portal in the Nevada desert that enabled them to travel through space to the Red Planet with minimal ill effects. Sounds like "Stargate," right? Mysteriously, super humanoid creatures have begun to kill scientists in the underground labs. The institute issues a distress call that activates a Rapid Response Team led by Sarge (the Rock), a combat-seasoned Marine with Semper Fi tattooed across his back, and his crackerjack commandos.

Unlike the sexually diverse Marines in James Cameron's classic "Aliens," the "Doom" Marines are all red-blooded males with nicknames that encapsulate their one-dimensional characters. Among Sarge's troops is a God-fearing but profane grunt who craves crosses into his forearm with a razor-sharp knife when he takes the Lord's name in vain. Another Marine appears to have been modeled on the Jesse Ventura character from "Predator," because he lugs around an electric-powered Gatling gun that can turn anything into a sieve. John Grimm (Karl Urban who played Eomer in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) constitutes the most reluctant RRT team member. It seems that he once lived on Mars with his archaeologist parents and has nightmares about the experience. The trip back to Mars gives Grim a chance to re-establish contact with his estranged twin sister Samantha (Rosamund Pike of "Die Another Day") who guides Sarge and his men through the treacherous confines of the facility. Although Mars serves as the setting for "Doom," "Cradle 2 the Grave" director Bartkowski only provides us with fleeting glimpses of the planet's bleak, barren surface.

Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson gives his least charismatic performance as the hard-as-nails Sarge. He utters no clever one-liners and plays Sarge with a straight face. Meaning, the Sarge character is about as lively as a cadaver. Richard Brake of "Death Machine" takes top honors as one of Sarge's low-life jarheads who gets his comeuppance in the least likely place. Poor Rosamund Pike alternates between being a heady scientist and helpless damsel-in-distress. As it turns out, we learn that the researchers on Mars have discovered the 24th chromosome that endows humans with supernatural strength. About the worst that these monsters do is cough up large sausage-shaped worms that bore into the victims' neck, similar to the squirming critter in the "Hidden" films that entered its victims' ears and drove them psychotic. The much touted first-person shooter scene has been far over-hyped and lasts for about five minutes. This first-person shooter scene like many of the stalking scenes in the claustrophobic institute suffer from a shortage of suspense and tension. Bartkowski keeps the lights turned low on his bargain basement monstrosities and his efforts to make them intimidating rarely yield results. Altogether, "Doom" is filled with so much gloom that the plot generates few thrills and chills and emerges as just another standard-issue, testosterone-laced, mutant monster hunt.