The other day, while checking the channels for anything interesting that was coming up, I saw, on Syfy, a film titled Battle of Los Angeles. My initial thought was, wait, that can’t be the film that’s just been out in the cinema already? Or maybe they had a special deal. Unusual for a channel like Syfy to get that.
Nonetheless, I recorded it and sat down to watch what turned out not to be Battle: Los Angeles as released in the cinema this year, but Battle of Los Angeles as released on Syfy with apparently no other purpose than to cash in on a random sci-fi film on the market.
Now, sometimes you might get a film like this that isn’t actually too bad, but not often. However, it really comes to something when you find a truly bad film. I’ll admit that, like the atrocity to film making that is Vampires vs Zombies, I did not watch more than 15 minutes of it, but in film making this is the golden time during which most film watchers will decide whether or not to keep watching. In 15 minutes I expect to know who the key characters are, why shit is happening and give me a reason to keep watching. Every time I flicked over to the abysmal Megashark vs Giant Octopus there seemed to be a cast of completely new characters with a scene setting up their demise by one of the titular beasties. Within the first 15 minutes of Battle of Los Angeles, I’d already seen at least three scenes like this. An aerial combat which served no real purpose than to introduce the aliens in a blatantly ripped off from Independence Day scene containing the worst special effects I’ve seen in a science fiction film since the turn of the century. This was followed by a forgettable scene between two soldiers who completely failed to leave any impression on me, so much so that I only barely remembered the scene while writing this review. Finally, followed by another apparently pointless and needlessly prolonged scene introducing even less charismatic characters with the obligatory sexy Asian bad-ass-talking fighter pilot and the frightened white-kid with an atrociously badly acted drill-sergeant-esque general trying to get him in the air by threatening to shoot him. This went on forever until the aliens and some more bad special effects put the scene out of its misery. By the commercial break I had already deleted the recording from my V+ box.
The allegedly worst film ever made, Plan 9 From Outer Space, ranks higher on IMDB.