Directed by Peter Berg
Written by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, based on the Hasbro game of the same name.
Running Time: 131 minutes (2h, 11 mins.)
Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence, action and destruction, and for language.)
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Let me start off this review with a question that been in many of movie bloggers' heads since this project was announced: whose idea was this?! Who at Universal convinced the studio to spend $209 million to make a movie based on a Hasbro board game that, I mind you, has no expansion to it (no action figures, animated series, etc.)? What could they possibly do with this unusual source material? Well, add an huge alien invasion (since we don't get enough of those), one of the biggest pop stars in the world, some kind of Friday Night Lights reunion between its director and two of its stars, and a load of explosions. You get a Transformers-looking version of Battleship. It's understandable, considering how much money the Transformers movies made altogether at the box office, but that doesn't mean it can be a good sign.
Taylor Kitsch plays Alex Hopper, a slacker who later becomes a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. How? We get introduced to Hopper 7 years before in a bar, hitting on a woman named Sam (Brooklyn Decker) and manages to woo her when he breaks into a convienence store to get her a chicken burrito. We find out later on that Sam is the Navy Admiral's daughter who, of course, the superior (or shall I say, boss) of Hopper's big bro Stone (Alexander Skarsgard). Liam Neeson plays the Admiral, by the way. Fed up, Stone forces Alex to join the Navy.
As talented as he is now, Hopper still remains himself. He gets into a fight before the annual RIMPAC naval exercises start and could be discharged after the exercises are over. If only he could redeem himself...? That, my dear reader, is where the aliens come into earth. First they attack Hong Kong, then make their way to where the three boats are: Hawaii. From there mayhem ensues and blah, blah, blah...
At least Brooklyn Decker acts fine in this, and might I remind you, she made her film debut in an Adam Sandler flick (no, not Jack & Jill. The one before it.) Taylor Kitsch was okay, but he was better in John Carter (which as we know by the movie's dismal box office numbers, not enough people saw). Skarsgard isn't there as much. I won't reveal why. And Neeson...what's there say about him? He's awesome, but he doesn't enough screen time.
Peter Berg is behind the camera on this film, though it obviously looks more a Michael Bay film. And Michael Bay had no involvement with this film whatsoever. He reunites with Kitsch, who made his name on Friday Nights Lights, the show Berg developed from the movie he directed which in turn was based on a book. Another FNL co-star Jesse Plemons provides some of the film's comic relief. Sadly though, comedy takes a backseat in this. My guess is that it needed more comedy. The serious tone of the film (more so in the second half) doesn't really work.
Battleship is overall not a bad film. It was most of what I expected it to be: loud, mindless and fun. It lives up to be that, though that slowly starts to disappear in the second half, then when it comes to the end, slowly starts to come back to what it was made to be. I can't ignore that the problems that plague it though. At 131 minutes, it's a little too long, the serious tone that consumes the second half should've been gone and it does have lines that frankly, I've heard before. On the positive note, besides Rihanna's "performance", the acting isn't bad, the action sequences are pretty epic and the visual effects are top notch. These keep the film from really sinking. A 5 out of 10 will do. I will add this however. No matter what anyone thinks about the film, good or bad, it serves as a good example of why you shouldn't make movies out of board games, especially ones that don't have a story.
