There are a lot of hokey war movie cliches in Battle: Los Angeles, but I have to admire how steadfastly it portrayed what an ugly, harrowing experience a massive alien invasion would really be. None of that Independence Day sugarcoating bullshit here - hordes of merciless, seemingly unstoppable extra-terrestrial death pods would be a horrible thing for the world to face, and this movie wasn’t afraid to show that, commercialism be damned.