- We want you! (To sit through this
movie)
Every time I have a string of
acceptable or downright enjoyable movies, I never sit back and enjoy
the time I had with them. It isn't until I get to a horrible movie
that I look back at them and wish I was still watching those movies.
Thus begins my review of Battleship. This movie was based off of
Hasbro's board game of the same name. The movie is just over 2 hours
long and if you have ever played the board game you already know that
the movie couldn't possibly have 2 hours of references and it
doesn't. So if you're looking for a deep rich movie that brings back
those fond memories of you playing the board game, forget it.
Someone bought the name and literally threw in a couple throwbacks to
the script that was probably written years before. This was a big
goofy movie with a big budget, high on great special effects but with
a piss-poor story that sends its viewers mixed messages about who is
the bad guy.
As with any movie that is made in part
by a military unit, one can expect a little advertising for them.
Join the Army, join the Navy, serve your country and what have you.
I don't really mind it, it adds some realism to it (the movie uses
actual decommissioned boats, and actual military personnel including
some USS Missouri veterans who served during WWII) and Battleship
does deserve credit for using them. Thanks to imdb's trivia section
for letting me in on that.
The movie begins by stating that the
earth's greatest minds are sending a signal to a planet that is just
like ours but really far away in the galaxy. Some foreshadowing
occurs about aliens coming and and them being like the Americans and
we're the Indians. I'm sure that won't be important nor come back to
haunt us. We are transported to the younger days of our hero, we meet
him and his brother Alex Hopper (played by Taylor Kitsch), and brother Stone Hopper (played by Alexander Skarsgård) celebrating Alex's
birthday. For the next 30 minutes and with the magic of movies we
see him transform from a delinquent without a job living on his
brother's couch to a delinquent who is in the navy as a high ranked
officer under the command of his brother and more importantly Admiral Shane (played by Liam Neeson). As a 2 hour movie, 30 minutes
showing three scenes that come out to be the same “Hero is a
stubborn, foolhardy and juvenile person, pre- and post-navy school”
is rather repetitive: I think the second scene with him failing the
penalty shot against the Japanese team would have sufficed and made
him a stronger character. With all three scenes, I didn't like him
at all. These cuts alone would have helped with pacing as the first
90 minutes aren't near as enjoyable as the last 30. The girlfriend
Sam (played by Brooklyn Decker) being completely cut would have served wonders as
well. She played a small plot device at best, her accompanying
legless war vet who she counsels was perhaps a nice touch but
his storyline is such a cliché that you see it coming in the first
mention of him.
The biggest complaint I have, however,
is that there is a rather grey area about the invasion. You get
almost no information from the aliens but what is displayed through
their actions, and this is usually unclear. Most of the time they
are the secondary attackers in the situation; they mostly try not to
kill people who are unarmed (fistacuffs doesn't seem to matter but then guns don't hurt them either)
though they don't care about collateral damage/deaths (even though
they decided to not kill one little boy, they then destroyed a bridge
that had multiple cars and presumably people on it). I felt that the
creators of the movie were going more for the message that the
inhabitants of Earth as a whole are too trigger happy and say talk
but mean war. The “villains”(aliens) in the movie can be thought
of as travellers who the humans misunderstand and attack, even though
we sent out the peaceful message. For the most part, their weapons
are better than ours, but then they leave quite a few survivors for a
species that is clearly ahead of ours and wants to kill us all. I
just wanted a dumb sci-fi, end of the world kind of flick. I didn't
really want to have a heavy undertone of a “we need to be better
people” message along with it.
 |
| I need to make an important phone call AND show you how strong my forearm is. |
A quick note on acting, it was all
rather underwhelming, nothing bad like you'd expect in a B movie or
original TV movie (though to be honest, had they gone full-on cheesy
it could be a more enjoyable movie). I hope to see more of Rihanna in
movies (than hear more of her music) in the upcoming years, she had one memorable line in the
movie. It took me back to the days of 80s action movies so in coming
sequels I'd at least like her to star in them. Liam Neeson was more
a guest star, so don't expect to see him going around killing
millions of aliens looking for his boat or something. Nobody else
was honestly noteworthy, you'll forget them all by the next day after
viewing. Which sums up my thoughts on the movie nicely.
I give the movie a 4/10
PS: The aliens, they had porcupine
needles for beards, right? Beard envy.
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