Spaced Out

DIRECTOR: Jonathan Liebesman

CAST: Aaron Eckhart,Ramon Rodriguez,Michelle Rodriguez,Bridget Moynahan

rating: 1/2

Only a country that has never got invaded could have such wet and colossally expensive dreams about getting invaded,at least once every year and quite often from outer space. Since the basic idea is to give “them” all you have got,does it really matter who “they” are? In World Invasion,more specifically Battle Los Angeles,the “they” don’t get a face or a voice,or even a native planet; nary a motive,design or a cause.

One fine morning,of course a morning most inconvenient for our Staff Sergeant Nantz (Eckhart),who has decided to quit after a bad experience at his last posting (Iraq? Afghanistan?),they start dropping down from the skies and killing people.

They only attack near the shores and since they don’t make any ransom demands,the “experts” conclude on TV stations that somehow are still running — when the police and the air force have been wiped clean — that the aliens are after the Earth’s most precious resource: water. And they are colonising our planet,by decimating the population.

So,without much ado,the metal and flesh concoctions come together and come apart,literally,even as they kill all in sight. In one imaginative scene,if it can be called that,Nantz and Sergeant Elena Santos played by the woman made for such films,Michelle Rodriguez,dissect one alien to try and find out where to hit to kill those beasts. After much slashing and pulling through liquid pus,Nantz discovers a beating organ and bellows to his men: “The right! Shoot to the right.” Of course when the shootings start,you can’t really say who’s shooting where. The senselessness of it all is much like the rest of the movie.