“Battle Los Angeles” laid waste to its competition at the box-office over the weekend, grossing $36 million to take the top spot — and leaving the more family-friendly alien adventure “Mars Needs Moms” in the dust.

“Mars” only grossed $6.8 million to take fifth place, well behind “The Adjustment Bureau”, in fourth with $11.5 million. “Rango” slipped to second with $23 million, and “Red Riding Hood” suckered $14.1 million out of confused teenagers to take third.

As one of the few critics who kinda liked “Battle Los Angeles” — well, Armond White loves it, but I get the cold shakes whenever we wind up in agreement — I’m not surprised to see it doing so well. It’s been designed as pure mass-market entertainment, so naturally the masses are going for it. Easier to pitch than “Rango”, simpler to understand than “The Adjustment Bureau”, not labouring under the stinking musk of conceptual disaster like “Red Riding Hood” … no wonder it’s a smash!

Also, you can never really go lose money when you make a movie about soldiers shooting guns at aliens. As I’ve said, it’s the movie the masses wanted Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” to be. They were wrong, but now we have both. Win-win, right?