The obnoxiously photographed “Battle: Los Angeles” shows how utterly bankrupt a movie technique has become
How to describe the aggressive dreadfulness of “Battle: Los Angeles,” maybe the worst-directed Hollywood movie I’ve ever seen? Incompetent doesn’t do the trick, because it implies an inability to master basic craft. That’s not the case here. “Battle: Los Angeles” takes one of the more controversial cinematography fads of recent years — the “shaky camera and shallow focus equals ‘reality'” fad — to noxious new levels of excess. The movie is the work of professionals who decided to make their film look bad on purpose…
https://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/battle_los_angeles/index.html