Battleship

Battleship – 131m – PG-13

Any review that starts out with, "wow that movie did not suck as bad as I thought it would" is not a raving review. This movie was no more or less than what it was advertized as. It’s a water ballet version of Transformers. The XY of my brain liked the eye candy with the babes, explosions and high action. It pulls a little bit at the patriotic heart strings and even has a multicultural flare. All of that doesn't change the fact that this is a movie that is based on a board game. A dull board game at that. This two hour board game advertisement gets a red light. The action was fine but nothing else. Excuse me while I go weep in the corner over the realization Candy Land is actually being developed.

Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is a brilliant family screw-up. He has potential that no one sees except for his brother. Commander Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgard). After Alex gets arrested for breaking into a convince store to steal a burrito for Samantha Shane (Brooklyn Decker), he is forced into joining the Navy by his brother. Fast forward to Alex as an officer on a ship and wants to marry Samantha. He is now in a position to ask for her hand from her father Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson).
Alex gets into trouble with another officer Captian Yugi Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) from a Japanese ship and is going to be thrown out of the Navy after they get back to shore after the cross cultural naval games. Enter an alien invasion and the ship that Alex is on gets separated from the fleet and he must fight for humanity with a rag-tag group of survivors.

The main problem with this film is that it is just an excuse to blow things up and show off how cool real battleships are. The sad point is that they might have had some really good story ideas if they had let go of the whole board game tie-in aspect. If they spent more money on making a movie that was better told I think the payday would have been much higher for much longer. This could have been much better leveraged as a sea battle movie because battleships are extremely cool. They don’t need special gimmicks.

Rihanna was in this film and for nothing more than eye candy, (and she does that well). I feel that she was completely held back and made to be set dressing than actually doing anything substantial in the role. I think she has talent but she needs to get a more serious role to really give this acting thing a go.

Spoiler Warrning!!!! Only crew members of the Mighty Mo click here to see the spoilers!!!

Ok. If you have any military experience you would know that any military equipment is being given over to civilians or set up as a museum, they break every system in that piece of equipment. They pour concrete down the barrel and strip out anything that could give away any military secret. It would have been better to say that the Mighty Mo was on its way to be decommissioned.

The other problem is that it seemed like there were only really five people on the crew the stars did everything from sniper to navigating the ship to security sweeps. I was in the Army so I am not sure but doesn't each ship have like hundreds of people on it to keep it running? Why is the Capitan down in the hold running around clearing aliens?

Col. Greg Gadson is a real life Army Serviceman who was wounded during his service in Iraq. He has been working as a director of the Army’s Wounded Warrior Program and was approached by the film’s director (Peter Berg) to be in the film. This was a great opportunity to bring attention to the men and women who have served our country; I just wish it was a better venue. Col. Gadson’s scene was poorly written. He has such a powerful presence that was poorly used. The scene was presented as a man who overpowers his internal demons as well as kicking ass on an alien. The pacing felt like it was rushed and crammed in without making sure that it was constant with the tempo of the entire move.

What changes would you have made to the story? What do you think would have been a better direction?