Battle: Los Angeles

Within the first 15 minutes, we're in battle and the rapid pace never lets up. The only difference between this and, say, the Iraq War, is that the enemy is an unseen race of aliens, having come from afar to take over the west coast, and, one imagines, every other country on Earth. Obviously, the stakes are high.

We see this battle from the perspective of the Marines who are sent into an impossible situation. We get two or three minutes with each Marine in the beginning so that we can sort them out. Aaron Eckhart plays the sergeant of his platoon, a man with survival issues. And he's saddled with a first lieutenant fresh out of the academy with no battle experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and I was involved from beginning to end. What I thought was rather simplistic, and its characters stereotypical, in the beginning, and totally unreal, turned into just a transition to get us to the action. After that, I simply forgot about those issues and concentrated on the characters and their dilemma. In fact, my overwhelming thought was, how the hell are they gonna get out of this?!

I've always enjoyed Aaron Eckhart, and I think this may be his best role yet as a leader of men who don't quite trust him.

My only real complaint about the movie is that some of the plot points -- why are the aliens here, how can we defeat them -- are tied up too handily and too quickly.

And it's always a convenient device to have a space alien as your enemy. No censors are going to gripe if you splatter them all over Lincoln Boulevard.

Still, I enjoyed a good story. Thumb's up.