Battleship Review

Rated PG-13 (Intense Sequences of Violence, Action and Destruction, and for Language)

Running Time: 2 Hours & 11 Minutes

Cast-

Taylor Kitsch-Lieutenant Alex Hopper

Liam Neeson-Admiral Shane

Robyn ‘Rihanna’ Fenty- Petty Officer Cora 'Weps' Raikes

Brooklyn Decker-Samantha Shane

Alexander Skarsgård-Commander Stone Hopper

Tadanobu Asano-Captain Yugi Nagata

John Tui-Chief Petty Officer Walter 'The Beast' Lynch

Jesse Plemons-Boatswain Mate Seaman Jimmy 'Ordy' Ord

Gregory D. Gadson-Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales

Hamish Linklater-Cal Zapata

Adam Godley-Dr. Nogrady

Directed by Peter Berg

Taylor Kitsch is wondering why Rihanna sunk his battleship in Peter Berg's dumb science fiction action film based upon the famous Milton Bradley (now owned by Hasbro) board game.

Now I’m positive that Hollywood is run by monkeys wearing expensive suits! When Universal announced a film adaptation of the famous board game Battleship in 2009, the news was largely met with derision. Director James Cameron added his own two cents with the following remark: ‘We have a story crisis.  Now they want to make the Battleship game into a film.  This is pure desperation’ and found such a project to be a degradation of cinema. First published by the Milton Bradley Company (now owned by Hasbro, Inc. since 1984) in 1943 as a pad-and-pencil game, Battleship already had a worldwide reputation that predated World War I. The famous board game format where players utilized a plastic grid with holes where pegs could be inserted wasn’t published until 1967. The current iteration from Hasbro was released in 2008 and features small islands where your ‘captured man’ can be hidden. Directed by Peter Berg of “Friday Night Lights” fame, “Battleship” the film has very loose ties to the board game and features a naval battle between a group of alien invaders and…battleships! A rip-off of numerous science-fiction films and video games, “Battleship” is, not surprisingly, a mind-numbingly dull experience that drops story and character in favor of bludgeoning its audience with a barrage of CG explosions for close to two hours. The summer movie season is always full of dumb flicks like these but this one is likely to turn you into a brain-dead zombie. 

In 2005, a group of NASA scientists led Dr. Nogrady (Adam Godley) discover a planet with similar conditions to Earth. Dubbed ‘Planet G,’ NASA transmits a powerful signal from a massive communications array in Hawaii, which will be boosted by an orbiting satellite. Meanwhile, Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is celebrating his birthday at a bar in Oahu with his older brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgård). An attractive woman comes in to order a chicken burrito but is refused service by the bartender. Smitten, Alex decides to impress her by getting a chicken burrito from a nearby convenience store. Unfortunately, the store closes just as he arrives and he ends up breaking in. The police arrive and stun him into submission with tasers but not before Alex delivers the burrito to the woman. Stone angrily berates his brother for his reckless behavior and reveals that the woman is Samantha Shane (Brooklyn Decker), daughter of United States Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson), his superior. To prevent him from ruining his career, Stone forces Alex to join him in the United States Navy. Seven years later in 2012, Alex is now a lieutenant and the Tactical Action Officer onboard the destroyer USS John Paul Jones while Stone is the commanding officer of the USS Sampson. Alex and Samantha are currently in a relationship and the two want to get married but Alex is afraid to ask for permission from her father. During the Rim of the Pacific Exercise or RIMPAC naval exercise, Alex brawls with Japanese officer Captain Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) after losing a game of soccer to his team, the latest in a series of incidents that results in his discharge, effective at the end of the naval exercises. RIMPAC is interrupted by the arrival of five alien ships in response to the signal sent by NASA. One of the ships collides with an orbital satellite and crash-lands in Hong Kong, causing catastrophic damage but the rest land near the coast of Hawaii. Alex leads a team comprising of Gunner's Mate Second Class Cora Raikes (Robyn ‘Rihanna’ Fenty) and Chief Petty Officer Walter 'The Beast' Lynch (John Tui) to investigate but one of the ships erects an impenetrable force field, separating three of the battleships from the rest of Admiral Shane’s fleet. The alien ships quickly destroy the USS Sampson and Myōkō, leaving Alex the only senior officer to battle the invaders in a fight to save the Earth from extinction. 

James Berardinelli of ReelViews writes that “Battleship” ‘has the IQ of a rutabaga and doesn't require much more intelligence than that to watch’—a perfectly apt description for such a profoundly insipid mess of a film. The story from writers Jon and Erich Hoeber is as paper-thin as they come and despite spending close to forty minutes setting up the characters, none of it really matters once the explosions start going off, which goes on and on for the better half of the film. Berg’s attempt to turn our brain issue into mush reeks of desperation as you soon grow numb and simply stop caring about what’s happening after the umpteenth explosion. There’s not a hint of originality in “Battleship” as it liberally borrows from video games such as “Crysis” and “Halo” to similarly-themed science fiction films like Roland Emmerich’s “Independence Day” and even Michael Bay’s “Transformers.” Outside of a throwaway flashback scene, the script never provides any tangible motivation for the alien’s arrival and the way they are depicted lacks any logical consistency. Their ships are established to be nigh invincible in the beginning but easily fall apart like Papier-mâché by the end. For a race that is able to traverse millions of light-years, I find it puzzling that their ships cannot fly but instead hop around like frogs. Their armor is bullet-proof but apparently, no one bothered to do that for their ships and one of them is defeated due to the fact that their weapon turrets cannot fully turn 360 degrees. Little things like the ones I mentioned ultimately undermine the film because it is forced to cheat in order to allow our heroes to be victorious. Berg even shoehorns an actual game of Battleship when the USS John Paul Jones begins a cat-and-mouse chase with the alien ships through the use of a grid system. However, no one says the famous line, ‘You sunk my battleship!’ The film gets even more ridiculous, devolving into a Navy recruitment video once a group of old war veterans show up, apparently just waiting to be called upon! The only praise I can give is that the visual and sound effects genuinely look very polished and the humor at least does not fall into the juvenile depths that plague numerous Michael Bay films. 

The acting ranges from laughably bad to cringe-inducing thanks to the terrible dialogue and non-existent character development. Taylor Kitsch looks the part of an action hero but we’ve seen such a stubborn and hot-headed character dozens of times before in better films. Alexander Skarsgård ends up shouting all his dialogue and is quickly dispatched away. Making her movie debut is singer Robyn ‘Rihanna’ Fenty, who is not a good actress to put it lightly. Some of the lines she says make absolutely no sense. Her character remarks that her father knew that one day the aliens would come but how this knowledge was obtained is never elaborated upon. I really do not understand this recent trend of having singers and supermodels starring in films. These people should stick to what they’re good at and stop dragging down the standards of cinema with their god-awful acting skills. Brooklyn Decker is once again just a pretty face running across the screen in a tank top. The only actor who comes out relatively unscathed is Liam Neeson but his screen-time amounts to a glorified cameo. Still, it’s always a joy to hear him chew someone out as this was the only good scene in the film. I sure hope he was paid well for his trouble. 

To be released on May 18, 2012, “Battleship” has received largely negative reviews with 37% on Rotten Tomatoes but what us critics think matters little. I managed to see the film at an advanced screening two days before its wide release in North America and the audience responded with enthusiastic applause. I simply shook my head in embarrassment and sighed in defeat at such a reaction. Afraid of having it become a major flop, Universal opened “Battleship” a month early overseas and has earned a respectable $215 million worldwide, enough to cover its production budget but it is unlikely to reach blockbuster status in North America when a far superior film is already in theaters. I am referring to Joss Whedon’s “The Avengers.” Most analysts are pegging a debut of $35 to $40 million, which is already too much. If you’re a fan of dumb CG action films like this one, then you’ve already made up your mind about “Battleship” and nothing I say can dissuade you from seeing it but for anyone possessing at least a modicum of intelligence, you’re once again better off watching “The Avengers” in support of actually good films.

Final Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales: Let's give the world one more day.

Cal Zapata: Who talks like that?! (only people who can't write worth a damn talk like that)