It's Official: Worst Movie Ever.
 

Battle: Los Angeles.

No matter how hard you tried, no matter what you did, if you set out with the intention of making the absolute worst possible movie in the world, you could never, ever, in a thousand years, make a movie as completely, irrecoverably horrible as this movie.

I have watched the first half hour or so of this film and I was able, within the first five minutes, to guarantee, with 100% absolute certainty, that this movie could only possibly be useful as the subject of an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

I don't even think we'll get enough enjoyment out of cracking smartass jokes to keep from turning this off.

You're wrong.

And here I thought "Skyline" had won that title hands-down...

Here's my question: what did you expect it to be? What about it would have made it a better, or even different, 5 millionth alien action flick with lots of explosions and noise?

What, there was no love story as a backdrop? ;)

Good questions. The movie should resemble, in SOME way, the trailer that caused you to want to see it. You shouldn't have to check the credits and then literally look the movie up on IMDB to make sure that you aren't watching a copycat movie. You shouldn't be left feeling that they produced a great trailer, FIRST, and then threw together a shitty movie to steal people's money. The badguys should look better than a 1950s sci-fi. The special effects should be GOOD, not like an old Dr. Who episode. Grenade explosions should be larger in diameter than 4 feet. Want more?

I had no great expectations of acting or plot, but I did expect it not to FAIL MISERABLY at the small list of things it SHOULD have gotten right.

Thanks for the clarification.

Of course, those kinds of movies are not my cup of tea, but I can see now why it might be a cup of tea you would ordinarily have enjoyed except for the very areas they screwed up.

Honestly, I didn't think it was possible to screw up special effects in this day and age, which is why I wondered what it was lacking. I read the budget was like 70 million. I understand your disappointment.

Thanks. :)

I love a good alien action flick. (I'm hoping Cowboys and Aliens doesn't disappoint - I have to go see it because of Daniel Craig). But Battle was simply embarrassing. My husband got caught up in the preview too. I figured it might suck so I looked up the reviews at Yahoo. There were so many 'A' ratings with 'totally fucking awesomes' from viewers, I thought maybe it had a chance. Now I'm really really wondering who put those reviews in there.

The same PR Firm that produced the inexplicable, bait-and-switch trailer?

Yup.

I knew it was going to be a sucky B- (--) movie before I went. How could a movie with Aaron Eckhart not suck? That was part of the joy of it. It was almost a throw back to the horrible movies of the '80's.

Mind you, I'm not saying the movie was good. I simply dispute the idea that it was the worst. Avatar, The Phantom Menace, and Matrix 2 were far worse simply by virtue of believing they were going to be good before I went.

It was really just a rip off, like Flint is saying. The previews lured you in with visions of electrifying CGI. But the whole movie ended being like an futuristic episode of Combat.

It was exactly like a bad 80s movie. Should have been straight-to-video on VHS.

The trailer HAD to have been produced to be intentionally deceptive. I literally checked IMDB to confirm I was watching the real movie.

Some people say it succeeded at exactly what we should have expected from it. I disagree. I think it failed WORST of ALL in those areas.

To each his own. When I saw the trailer I told mrs L that it would be a horrible movie but it would be nice to see a war/invasion/alien movie that wasn't all over the top CGI. I got what I wanted. A laugh and cringe worthy B movie that wasted a couple of hours of my time.

Thats actually what a lot of the yahoo viewers who gave the movie an 'A' said too. Basically that it was like an old-fashioned war movie.

Like, The Bridge on the River WHY?

Less whistling. and fewer bridges. and the only accents were hispanic (it features the US military, afterall) but other than that, just like that bridge movie.

Less whistling and fewer bridges. :lol:

Funny!

In a military movie, the strategies and techniques would be important to get right. This was a HUGE FAILURE of this movie. The military aspects actually made no sense, even to a casual observer.

Flint, that movie was tactical bullshit. it was strategically inept. the weapons systems employed were wrong. even the way the common M4 is used was wrong.

Then again, 6 shooters didn't need to be reloaded until the pivotal scene when John Wayne needed to jump off his horse and use his fists.

Mel Gibson started shooting in Lethal Weapon 1 and didn't reload until Lethal Weapon 4.

Bruce Willis crawled through hundreds of yards of ventilation shaft that has all the screws and cut sheet metal pointing in and he came out a little dirty.

William Shatner had more hair as an Admiral than he had as a Captain.

Suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ridiculous, you might enjoy it.

It is the movie maker's responsibility to facilitate the viewing experience be POSSIBLE to enjoy. They failed at every single step. Not one thing did they fail to screw up so glaringly that it totally, irreversibly put me into "meta" mode.

I can't remember the last time I just turned a movie off. It offered nothing. Not even a scrap.

I wasn't expecting much--I love "bad" movies, and I am fully capable of putting myself into the premise that is the movie maker's vision.

This was a failure of execution.

Rewatched 28 Weeks Later the other night.
I enjoyed it when I watched it (I'm partisan when it comes to UK films that take on big Hollywood themes) but rewatching it - OMG.

I expect a film like that to sacrifice story for gore, but the plot holes! You could bury all of the infected and STILL have room to seal them in molten lead.

But to me, that shows the film worked. I didn't notice this when I first saw it at the cinema. It carried me along with it.

I'd find it hard to appreciate any film that left me scoffing in its wake.

I saw Battle LA in a giant theater packed with people all enjoying the stupidity and laughing and cheering with it. It was LOUD. That probably had a lot to do with my enjoyable experience.

No doubt it would be... measurably better to a degree, viewed in a theater.

I know what you are talking about though. Face Off and Passenger 57 were so bad I turned them off back in the day.

3rd Indiana Jones was so awful I walked out of the theater. I couldn't waste another precious minute of my life, not watching that drivel, anyway.

The Last Crusade was Great!!!! The last one was complete crap though.

I think the worst film I ever saw was Interview With a Vampire. My (ex) husband and I would go to cinema at least once a week and he thought I'd want to see it because I loved vampires. In fact I'd hated the book. So I went for him and he went for me. And when it started, I stayed for him and he stayed for me.

At this remove I honestly don't remember if we made it through the film, but both of us were bored and hating it. The story would end better if I remembered the end.

However I did walk out of Fame - the Musical. It had many good reviews, but I found the script laughable and the songs barely memorable. We went as a work group and the two of us absconded even before the interval. My colleague was gay and we went to a great bar. We had a great night.

Interview with Brad Pitt was a horrible steaming pile of a movie. The books however, are outstanding.

I've only walked out of two movies.

Jurassic Park 2 (Had projector problems and was boring anyway)
Mixed Nuts with Steve Martin. (The first 30 minutes were so bad, we just got up and left.)

Had I gone to see The Core at the theater, it would have been my first ever walkout.

If they blow shit up, that immediately and automatically makes it a much better movie than Twilight.

Disbelief went out the window about 45 mins into Battle L.A.

I was actually offended by Battle L.A. & Skyline.

No one has mentioned Battlefield Earth? plot holes, corny dialogue, ham acting ... rubbish movie, but bloody hilarious. Sounds the same as Battle: LA.

I watched about 3 minutes of that on TV a few weeks ago. Really really on a different level kind of bad there.

I kinda liked the way the alien ships sucked the people up in Skyline. :D

The ending just left me slack-jawed, though, it was so bad.

Try reading the book!
It's on a very short list of books I could not finish.

Can't stand L. Ron Hubbard's adolescent fantasy.

Want to just put my hand up here and say I really liked Interview with a Vampire. Was the first film in a while that I liked Tom Cruise.

Couldn't finish Faceoff. Total tripe. And the last Indiana Jones film was appalling!



[eta] For all its glorious effefcts, and let's face it some of them were delightful, I think possibly the worst fiilm I ever saw was Independence Day.

With Contact as a close second.

[eata] that's probably unfair on Contact. I have seen far worse films. But generally when i see a really bad film it is enjoyable as that. Contact seemed like it was going to be great and then just dissolved into wishy-washy, airy-fairy nonsense.

Of this I have no doubt. I don't even need to see the explosions or the horny vampires to think this has to be true! :D

Netflix, Netflix, Netflix.

This what Netflix is for, Just flooding my queue here.

I'm seeing Battle: Los Angeles and Battle Over Los Angeles, the second being described as a mockumentary. oh well better check them both, at least BOLA is steraming

I may never look at you the same way again Dani. That is blasphemy. Independence Day was one of the best cheesy scifi flicks of the last 10-15 years. It was so over the top with its all-american good guyism that you just have to love it. Unless you're an America hating commie.

Mars Attacks! was also brilliant.

Whaaaaaat?! Girlfriend, please. The entire second half of Contact was unwatchably hideous. And Independence Day was awesome! It had Brent Spiner in it!

Brent Spiner was the main reason i watched that film :p


Oh and Mars Attacks is one of the best films evah.

Say it ain't so.

I love that flick. Jeff Goldblum's stammering everyman. Will Smith's wise-cracking hero, and New York blowing up. What's not to like?

Maybe because I was anticipating some serious sci-fi. I think the point at which i really lost faith with it was when Will Smith punched an alien.

I should probably watch it again as a gloriously bad movie. I didn;t get any of that joy from it at the time though.

The Highway Man with Hugh Grant a long time before he was famous. So bad that it's not even worth watching the first 5 minutes to see the mullet wig that the wardrobe department dressed him up in.

I loved it too, because Goldblum and Smith were in it. It was great as a fantasy Alien attack flick.

Mebbe it's an American thing.
I was also distinctly underwhelmed.
I worked in anti-virus software at the time and the reeption it got on our internal bulletin board was less than impressed.

It was the first of its kind I think. A full-blown special-effects Hollywood blockbuster about fighting aliens and spaceships. We love our blockbusters.

(Well after Star Wars, of course. But star wars wasn't real-time)

It had everything that you want from a summer movie.

-humor
-action
-aliens
-patriotism (come on, it was built around the 4th of July)
-White House blown up
-inept wuss political hacks being slapped around
-aerial and space battles
-a mismatched partnership saving the planet
-a president we wished we had

Great movie.

I can only really see it in terms of a really shit b-movie but with a blockbuster budget. On those terms I can imagine revelling in it.

One of my problems with it was that, where some movies know they're shit and that's what makes them great, and others don't know they're shit and that's what makes them great, I just couldn't work out whether or not this film knew.

It may be one of those rare instances where American humour/sensibilities just didn't translate that well for me.

Probably. I know a lot of americans that simply do not find any humor in shawn of the dead, hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, monty python or just about anything else tracing roots to the UK.

Personally I think you just didn't like it because the awesome americans saved the day again. america rulz. admit it, that gets under your skin. ;)

I loved Shaun of the Dead and Paul. Couldn't stand Hot Fuzz. Can't put my finger on why.

There is a movie about the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. In fact there are several such movies, but only one has Mick Jagger in the title role. :facepalm: 'nuff said.

Independence Day meets Black Hawk Down about sums it up in my book. Enjoyable no-brainer flick. Anyone who gets worked up about this movie needs to calm down and quit being overdramatic. There's by far been worse. The Scary Movie series, Batman & Robin (1997), Howard the Duck, Catwoman, Disaster Movie, Garfield, need I go on?

BTW, I was inspired to pull my copy of Independence Day off the shelf and watch it again last night.

I believe that for every scene in Independence Day, even if you accept everything in the movie up to that point, the next scene makes no sense.

I enjoyed it while I was watching it, but the sheer stupidity of pretty much the entire script destroyed its rewatchability for me.

It would make great MST3K fodder, though.

I actually enjoyed the film. I like the theme, and way it was set out. I guess if your into all this new age horror then it's probably not your cup of tea.

A lot of people say Cannibal Holocaust is poor. I've heard a lot of negative comments about it, some say it's the worst film. I love it though. It's all down to personal taste.

"Battle: Los Angeles" wasn't a great film, but it was far from the worst film ever made.

The worst film ever made is "Firebirds".

Cannibal Holocaust is only poor if you judge it by standard mainstream measures. It and that whole italian cannibal genre have to be judged on genre standards. Personally I think it's an amazing film, but not exactly pleasant to watch.

I think I accidentally clicked on this once, a poor stab at Top gun with Helicopters and Nicolas Cage.