Battle: Los Angeles Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan Rating: TBD Release Date: March 11, 2011
TRAILER SCORE: 4/10
MY THOUGHTS: First off, I found the song featured in this trailer to be extremely grating and gloomy, and for me, it just about killed the whole deal. I understand that this film's going to be morose, and that's all fine and good, but the grating cyborg vocals were both heavy-handed (laden with cheese), and just not nice on the old ear-drums. However, looking past this huge sonic misfire, I really liked the general look and feel of things -- the special effects and cinematography look fantastic. We've certainly seen films like this before, but this gritty Blackhawk Down treatment of Independence Day could make for an exciting film.
Casting Aaron Eckhart as the lead protagonist was a solid move, as he plays the role of hero well. Michelle Rodriguez returns to play yet another dour-faced badass military chick, and by the look of things, Bridget Moynahan will play Eckhart's love interest, and she's been good at such roles in the past.
Director Jonathan Liebeseman is known for his horror films (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The Killing Room), so I imagine this film will be a bit scarier than previous alien invasion films a la Independence Day, War of the Worlds and District 9, and this trailer does hint at such.
As a sidenote: If you want to know an artist to avoid (or to embrace if you happened to like the song) Jóhann Jóhannsson's song "The Sun's Gone Dim and the Sky's Turned Black" is the song featured in this trailer. I'd love to know what percentage of viewers liked this song, and what percentage hated it. For me, it really tore the whole thing up.
However, I am still excited to see Battle: Los Angeles, and, as long as the soundtrack doesn't feature Jóhann Jóhannsson, I'm excited to hear it as well.