Bringing the Wars Home: Battle: Los Angeles Trailer 3 (2011) HD

Often enough, especially with war movies, getting there is really half the fun. Even if you can't guess the outcome, you're fairly sure there will be one, and the way said outcome is arrived at is what largely holds one's attention.

Into this rubric steps Battle: Los Angeles (actually the subtitle; the full thing being World Invasion. Battle Los Angeles, which telegraphs its sub-plot before subsuming it in the main action sequences, only for it to resurface near the end.

Marine Staff Sergeant Mike Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is damaged goods, a fearless leader who has endure the ignominy of heavy casualties on his last tour. He has basically put in his discharge papers when of course, all hell breaks loose, and the meteor showers that pepper the western coastline form the film's opening segue into  the alien attack of the title. Nantz is thus pulled back into active duty and to lead men, one of whom is the brother of  one of the fallen soldiers. Complicating matters further, Nantz must also serve under a lieutenant (Ramon Rodriguez) who is fresh out of the academy, and who is both mistrustful and resentful of his presence.

With those issues, the squad charges into its mission, to reach an abandoned police station and see to the rescue and evacuation of some civilians trapped in there and to get everyone out before the Air Force levels the entire area with bombs.

What ensues are some credibly gritty fire-fights, the type that lit up Black Hawk Down, but this film lacks much of the urgency that attended Ridley Scott's war opus (ironically chronicling a side that got its butt kicked). The proceedings are leavened somewhat by the addition of the reliable Michelle Rodriguez as the leader of another squad that has stumbled through its own hell to find themselves in the same vicinity.

Ultimately however, Battle Los Angeles, which arrives in cinemas with "Battle Libya" escalating and with the prolonged battles in Iraq and Afghanistan supposedly approaching their respective endgames, is timely, but not timeless. The pantheon of great war movies ,both classic and contemporary, is already crowded, and the price of admission is simply higher than this movie presents at the door.

Teen Alien Superhero seeks Normal life:I am Number Four - Official Trailer [HD]

All the while I was watching this well-meaning latest effort from DJ Caruso(The Salton Sea), I kept fighting the impression that I was watching an expanded version of Smallville.

Alex Pettyfer (who formerly played teen spy Alex Rider) is John smith (yeah, they went there), a seemingly normal teen who is actually one of the last of a special breed of aliens fleeing persecution from a more warlike species (yeah, they went there, too) he has moved from city to city under the guidance and protection of his alien compatriot, the more snappily named Henri (Deadwood's Timothy Olyphant) who's pretty handy with a sword as we soon find out.

Enter Sarah (Diana Agron), the young outsider at the high school where Smith ends up becoming the love interest, and therefore, a problem in the Henri's eyes, given that the bad guys' arrival on the scene is imminent, since they have picked up his "scent."

But they're not the only ones in search of Smith. He is fourth in line out of nine "specials" that the warlike race wants, and they've already dispatched numbers One through Three, hence the "Number Four" of the title. The thing is Number Six (Ozzie Teresa Palmer) is also on the scene, and is trying desperately to rendezvous with our hero.

There's also a geek (Callan McCauliffe, last seen in the teen romance Flipped), who has some moments but the movie just isn't a compelling whole. Love conquers all, of course, and the cast collectively tries, but the film passes without any significant emotional attachment to any of these characters or their predicament. The marauding aliens are essentially stock types, devoid of intelligence but oddly funny in their brutishness.

I Am Number Four is destined to be merely the latest in a long line of youth-oriented films.