One of the most derided films of the
year – simply because of its title and lineage – finally hits the
big screen, and you know what? It's not as bad as everyone assumed it
would be. Yes, Peter Berg's Battleship,
based on the classic (and classically simple Hasbro board game), has
sailed into theaters and it's the big, noisy, special effects-filled,
summer spectacle that everyone dreaded/hoped for.
Here's
the story: Rebellious ne'er-do-well Alex Hopper (John
Carter's Taylor Kitsch) finds
himself in a world of trouble after a small breaking and entering
incident that was meant to impress a pretty girl (Brooklyn Decker).
The incident embarrasses Alex's Naval officer brother Stone
(Alexander Skarsgård),
especially when he's made aware that the girl is the daughter of his
Commanding Officer (Liam Neeson), and he gives Alex one option before
throwing him off the living room couch he's been living on … join
the Navy. Flash forward to the present, and Alex has earned the rank
of Lieutenant even though he's still a major screw up. During a
soccer game between the US and Japanese teams (taking place just
before RIMPAC, the Naval war games event), Alex and Captain Nagata
(Tadanobu Asano) butt heads, literally (well, Nagata's foot connects
with Alex's face), which causes friction between
them that leads to a fight later which leads to Alex learning he's
going to be discharged after RIMPAC. Ah, but fate intervenes when a
signal sent to an earth-like planet in some distant galaxy gets a
response, and not just a returned phone call. A squadron of alien
ships have come to earth, one crashes in Hong Kong (with debris scattered around the world) while the others
end up in the Pacific in the vicinity of the RIMPAC activities, Alex
and some of his officers get close enough to set off some kind of
force field that traps their ship, his brother's and Nagata's inside
with the rest of the fleet cut off outside, and some of the alien visitors
have made their way to the island to boost the signal to their world
for … well, we never know what reason.
And
that's the biggest problem with Battleship.
Besides just the basics in character development with the humans (and
most of the officers, including Rihanna's Petty Officer Raikes) are
just figures to be moved around the game board. We're never given
much information about the signal to the other planet (although one
of the scientists played by Hamish Linklater tries to warn the folks
at NASA that any response they get will be more like the Spanish and
the Indians, with us being the Indians), other than it looks like a
giant death ray similar to the one from Darth Vader's Death Star.
Perhaps it's just like that for the visual (because audiences have to
see the radio waves to know it's working), but it leaves us with the
impression that if you were on the receiving end of that burst of
energy, you'd be mighty pissed. And the aliens certainly are, but
there also seems to be no rhyme or reason to their actions. They can
scan any object for a threat, and seem to spare any living creature,
but anything else that could be destructive is attacked and the poor
ships trapped inside the dome are no match for them. We also don't
know why the aliens are trying to boost the signal to send their own
transmission. Is it an S.O.S.? Is it a “come on down and let's take
over this place” message? We never know, although that is what's
assumed.
Another
problem is the character of Alex. Not that he's a problem to figure
out, but his whole story is a cliché. When the aliens attack, you
know that he's going to have to align with Nagata and the two will
eventually come to respect each other, and by the end he will also be
respected by the Navy, so there is no complexity to his arc. All that
being said, I still enjoyed the heck out of the movie because it was
exactly what I expected: a summer popcorn flick with some astounding
special effects and a pretty cast. (And I did appreciate the way the
actual game element was woven into one major set-piece of the movie.)
Even if the alien ships are reminiscent of Transformers (and the
movie is still better than Transformers 2) and the aliens themselves
look like they just stepped out of the Halo video game, I was
entertained from start to finish (and you have to stick around
through the credits for a final “gotcha” moment) simply by the
spectacle of it all. It's ridiculous for critics to complain too
loudly about this type of movie because it's mission is to do one
thing – entertain the masses. It's also got a lot of patriotism
behind it as well, for despite the inclusion of a Japanese ship in
the midst of the action, the focus is on the U.S.A., especially when
some WW II vets are enlisted once again to save their country and the
world (and one of them gets to utter a line as close to the classic
game's slogan as you can get) which had the audience at my screening
cheering (and which may also hurt the film's box office chances
overseas more than the lack of plot and character development).
So, if
you're going to see a movie called Battleship,
I think you pretty much know what you're going to get, and the movie
delivers. Yes, it makes the character development in Marvel's
The Avengers look like Citizen
Kane in comparison, but the
action scenes and special effects are on par with the best of the
summer blockbusters. So go, check your brain at the door, and just
let yourself be awed by the spectacle of it all.
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