An alien invasion, set in modern day Los Angeles, it sounds interesting. The movie takes place as an alien species attack multiple major cities at once (they must have been gathering data to have decided to strike them), and we see just one of the many battles. Sometimes, I wish that the writers could somehow give us some reason (any at all!) on the decision of the aliens to start an invasion (other than take over Earth). The closest we got was that the alien uses water as power, and that Earth is the only planet in the human known universe to have it in liquid form without digging deeply into the crust. Anyway, I thought the movie started off with guns blazing, full of action, but it was quite slow paced after that. You are kept waiting for the climax that's bound to happen, and hopefully have some fun along the way. I wouldn't say that the journey was a disappointment, but it could have been done better and on a larger scale. I think I expected a full scale battle in which it was two sides against each other. It didn't seem too far a fight to the protagonists in that the aliens had advanced technology, and seemingly much harder to kill than normal human opponents. The actual climax, which was the last part of the film, felt tacked on.
Throughout the whole film, the protagonists were just aiming to get out of there alive with the civilians (turns out to be five people... and they send a whole squad in, in which more than half were killed) and get to the operations base. The whole control center thing felt outside of this objective and quite simply, crazy for the small team to just charge in there. The movie was also full of things you'll find in a stereotypical war movie, but it works. Although you've seen similar scenes and situations before, they still impact you. The ending does not provide much closure, as it does not cover the end of the war. I had suspected that as the movie neared it's end, and that was disappointing. I would rather see that the aliens were repelled (even if only from LA, whereas the other cities were still getting bombarded) rather than what we have now. The movie could be bigger and more spectacular, it doesn't blow you away but it's worth watching.