Aliens! They Just Keep Coming!

The FBI recently released a report that aliens, according to three witnesses, did indeed crash and burn outside of Roswell.

Somehow I am not surprised by this news, probably because aliens have been overrunning movie theatres since J. Edgar Hoover was struggling into a girdle. The alien invasion genre has been going strong for well nigh 60 years, and shows no sign of flagging. I think it's actually just getting warmed up. 2011 has already been dubbed the year the earth was overrun (again) and the silver screen will soon be buzzing with even more whizzing saucers, blinking lights and laser beams. Cowboys and Aliens alights this summer, preceded by Spielberg's return to science fiction with Super 8. Aliens are terribly convenient, they come to earth to eat store clerks and dogs, or steal all the water, or menace Daniel Craig.

And no matter what humans do to them, aliens just keep coming. I like that about them. Even if we can't in good conscience kill our fellow humans, despite the fact they wear different clothes, or worship a different God, aliens are good to go. Such useful creatures they are, gamely standing in for our murderous, neocolonialist, empire-building ways.

What is oddly comforting about these films is that sense of having been there before, a certain déjà voodoo. In the science fiction world, the homage and the rip-off waltz merrily along together, pausing occasionally to share a little kiss. It doesn't really matter whether it's slavering nests of insectoids, shape-shifting "Things," or perhaps the most horrifying of all, small sardonic creatures, voiced by Seth Rogen in Paul -- played for laughs or deadly straight, or somewhere in between, there is nothing new under the sun. Filmmakers even retread their own (best) material for new nuggets.

The big news on the alien front is that Ridley Scott is set to return to the fray, with a prequel to the franchise that he began so long ago. Yes, children, the bitch will be back soon enough, and she'll learn you good. Prometheus, the prequel to Alien, has gone into production, so we shall soon see whether old man Ridley still some tricks up his sleeves or not.

If you can't wait for the invasion to begin, there is always Battle: Los Angeles. A poor cousin of James Cameron's Aliens, this is a film that is best suited for nine-year-old boys. I know that first hand, having taken two such creatures to the film, which was soundly pronounced "The most awesome movie ever!" I had to stop myself from launching into crotchety mode. "Sonny, in my day, we had aliens that were really scary."

In brief, the story of the film is familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in science fiction, borrowing heavily from many other films, both good and bad, but mostly bad. Aging Marine sergeant Nantz played with tortured steel by Aaron Eckhart, has returned from some distant conflict, having lost most of his battalion. Heart-broken and soul sick, he is ready to hang up his gun belt and return to the rank and file of civilian life.

But just as he is limping away from the playing field, what should arrive but visitors from beyond the stars. Before you can say, "Holy Mothership!" the invasion begins with a few idiotic surfers, literally getting blown out of the water. From there the pace picks up and simply keeps going. There is little preamble, no foreplay, you're in the sack before you know it, bullets and bombardments filling the screen with enough whizzing action to distract from the threadbare plot and painful acting.

The story, such as it is, concerns a platoon of marines sent into the middle of an intergalactic warzone to rescue trapped civilians. The Marines, led by Nantz, are a troop of tough-talking interchangeable types, each issued with a phrase book of various rabble rousing, albeit nonsensical chants. To wit: "Retreat, Hell!" They head into the heat of battle charged up with testosterone juice, and get shot to shit. I lost track immediately of who was who, with the exception of Michelle Rodriguez, as an honorary man. Vasquez, where are you when we need you? Rodriquez has ripped off your stuff.

As the soldiers scamper through a blasted cityscape, they have occasion to get up close and personal with a few unfriendlies. Despite all the rounds of ammo, empty smoking shell cases filmed artfully as they plink to the ground, and mounting casualties, a crucial element is missing. The sense of dread, even a little uneasiness about the future outcome of the human race, is the fuel for the fire in invasion films. It is distinctly absent in Battle: LA. There are lots dead bodies, and more than a few moments of noble sacrifice.

This is the weepiest bunch of grunts I've seen in a while. Which is fine, I don't mind blubbering marines. But I have an issue with aliens that aren't even slightly frightening. The invading forces in Battle: Los Angeles look like so many evil tinker toys assembled to take over the planet, at the behest of some squiddy types, who are busily dancing the hula on distant rooftops. Even as the humans are decimated by the superior firepower of their foes, they stop long enough to issue some of the worst dialogue ever penned, such as: "I'm a veterinarian." Or, even better, "You're my little marine now."

Perhaps, we deserve what we get...

No bones about it, Battle: Los Angeles is not a good film. I haven't heard such howling bad dialogue since Uwe Boll went straight and began to refashion himself as an auteur. There are all the usual tropes assembled -- granite-jawed marines with lacerated souls, brave little kids soldiering through grief, dewy ladies with dirty faces and brave mien, Battle has it all. If I was a nine-year-old boy, I might have loved it too, but unfortunately, I am not young enough anymore to run through Vancouver's rain slick streets after a movie, cradling an imaginary M16, and shooting imaginary foes off of the roof of the Hudson's Bay store. Would that I were.

Despite its essential nonsensicalness, the damn film has lodged in my heart as a marker of sorts. There is a world of great science fiction films that I can now share with my son Louis -- Alien and Aliens, The Thing, or The War of the Worlds, as voiced by good old Orson Welles. The idea that our tastes have converged gives me some pause, but guilty pleasures are that for a reason. If you felt entirely good about them, what would be the point?

There is a reason that the alien invasion endures, passed down from generation to generation, mother to son. Even at the dawn of the form, the idea that we are not alone in the universe, nor in our instincts, was put down in print by the grand daddy of the form, H.G. Welles who wrote (with a racist tinge of his times) in the opening chapter of War of the Worlds: "And before we judge them [the Martians] too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished Bison and the Dodo, but upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of 50 years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?"

Alien, c'est moi.