Battle: Los Angeles

Tonight a couple friends and I watched Battle: Los Angeles.  The basic premise of the story is that earth is invaded by aliens who are seeking to colonize earth for its resources.  I was sort of excited to watch this movie mostly due to the fact that I haven't seen a good "apocalyptical" film for a while.  The movie started off ok – maybe a little slow.  I felt that the dialogue may have been a little weak in places.  The visual effects were pretty good as they should be in this sort of film.  Then the action scenes started with the squad of Marines moving through the burning rubble of Los Angeles.  The action scenes were ok but honestly I felt like I wasn't being mentally engaged very much.  There was really no intellectual aspect of the movie for me, it was all simply pretty special effects and really jerky camera movements. And guns.  After a while, I pretty much lost interest in the film, partially due to Cooper Danger Cooper running around on my floor with a pot on his head and a cape on yelling and also partially due to the fact that it just seemed drawn out.  I feel like there couldn't really have been much to cut out to make it move more quickly but at the same time it felt long.  I guess maybe I'm turning into a better "reader" now and actually wanting to be intellectually challenged and not simply put on a roller coaster with some flashing lights.