Case in point: Battle: Los Angeles, an alien-invasion disaster piece so loud, ham-fisted and joyless-so aggressively lousy-that its only real usefulness is to make one better appreciate the deft touch of a Roland Emmerich.
If the talk had been surgically removed, leaving only the sights and sounds of combat, this could have been a striking, semiabstract display of aggressive energy; as it is, any viewer over twelve will go for the laughs.
Don't mean to boast, but I can suspend my disbelief as willingly as any credulous moviegoer. Yet not even an industrial crane would have helped here. Nope, Battle: Los Angeles completely defeated me.
