Battleship

            If The Hunger Games was the start of the summer movie blockbuster season, this weekend is the start of the mindless, crappy, big, loud movie season.  Now, I don’t mind a movie that’s more spectacle than substance, but I need some substance.  Don’t serve me up a movie so full of plot holes that the entire film could have been resolved in 15 minutes if only one person in it had an IQ higher than 17.

            I think my wife said it best.  “I’m so glad Battleship is out so I don’t have to see the previews anymore.”

On to the review!

            There are so many things I want to say about Battleship, most all of them negative, that I keep forgetting some and can’t prioritize the rest.  This was an absolutely abysmal movie, both as a blockbuster and as a Navy recruitment film.  Will Smith and Bill Pullman made the Air Force look good in Independence Day.  The Army has several movies that portray them in a positive light.  The Marines absolutely cannot be messed with in real life or a fictional universe.  Sorry, Navy.  At least you still have Top Gun?

            The absolute worst part of Battleship is the fact that it actually starts well.  We’re introduced to two brothers, Stone and Alex Hopper (Alexander Skarsgard and Taylor Kitsch, respectively.)  Stone’s the respectable Navy officer and Alex is a 20-something screw-up.  They’re celebrating Alex’s birthday at a bar in Hawaii when a gorgeous woman (Brooklyn Decker, playing Samantha Shane) walks in.  One thing leads to another and Alex ends up getting tasered while trying to secure a chicken burrito for her.

            Then Alex is told he’s going to join the Navy, and things get really stupid from there on out.  On the plus side, he’s still got Samantha, right?  Well, you see, the fleet Admiral’s last name is Shane…oh shit!  The screw-up is dating the Admiral’s daughter!  And he’s Liam Neeson!  Oh snap son, you in trouble now! 

            Or at least, that’s what they were hoping you’d think.  I, instead, spent the whole movie waiting for Liam to make a broken bottle glove and punch an alien in the face.  Sadly enough, this never happened. 

            Instead, here’s what did happen:  We find a planet far away that looks compatible with human life and start send signals at it.  This is done in a hilariously terrible fashion, which had me pissed off roughly 80 seconds in to the film.  Then we get some hilariously blunt foreshadowing about the fact that any aliens who respond would probably wipe us out.  So, of course, a few years later, 5 ships enter our atmosphere.  One breaks up and crushes Hong Kong, the other 4 land in the ocean just off the Hawaiian Islands.

            Of course, since there are over a dozen countries participating in war games right there, they’re sent to investigate.  Then aliens happen, and a force field gets put up around Hawaii, trapping 3 destroyers (2 American, 1 Japanese) inside and the other 100+ Naval ships are stuck on the outside, unable to help.  This is when I lost what little interest I had, because it became so goddamn dumb.

            They kept cutting from the Pentagon to Admiral Shane and it’s absolutely clear that everyone knows what needs to be done, but NOBODY DOES ANYTHING.  The issue is that the aliens need our relays on the islands to beam locational directions up to our satellite.  That’s the only way they can communicate with the full invasion force.  They need to use our satellite.  Our satellite.  Our satellite that NASA built and controls that apparently cannot be in any way changed by NASA or destroyed by any means whatsoever.  Nope, our only hope is three destroyers.  No, wait, two…oops, no, one destroyer, now being led by a Lieutenant, because destroyers apparently have a crew of only 15 people.

            There’s my next problem.  Rather than respect the Navy and show just how much goes into running and maintaining a ship, they make it look like Raikes (Rhianna), Lynch (John Tui) and Alex can run almost every aspect of the ship, from repelling boarding action to running all weapon systems whilst simultaneously handling all the communications.  No, dude.  There’s a separate job for all of that, and while I can understand certain ‘all hands’ situations, you don’t send your damn missile control operator on a little PT boat to operate the forward-mounted minigun.  You keep her on the damn control console!

            Even worse, they do man a battleship at one point, and while I appreciate the genuinely touching tribute to our retired veterans, I really wish it had come within a better film.

            For those of you looking for Battleship: The Game references, they’re in there.  They even play a modified version of it where an officer is actually calling out grid coordinates, trying to destroy alien ships.  Unfortunately, nobody says “You sunk my battleship.”  Although, Liam Neeson does tell Peter MacNicol to basically go screw himself.  My disappointment came when Vigo failed to show up.

            I could go on and on for a few more pages, but I think you get the gist of it.  Battleship is a terrible movie, and I recommend you go see The Dictator this weekend.  It’s neither entertaining enough nor smart enough to join Independence Day, Top Gun, and Black Hawk Down as good movies sponsored by the U.S. Military.