Not that my expectations were high, but I think I struck a nearly all-time low with this one. Now, there are mega-military-flag-waving films that I intentionally skipped (Independence Day – I hear they are even doing a sequel – comes to mind), so I can’t explain why I chose this over Hunger Games. Well, there were aliens in it, so maybe that was what edged it out over Hunger Games. Battleship is sort of Top Gun with UFOs and killer aliens more or less. But Taylor Kitsch in no more a Tom Cruise in this film than he was a Johnny Depp in John Carter despite his efforts to the contrary. JC, his girlfriend, m.poulet and I were all pretty underwhelmed. As m.poulet put it, it was totally shameless. I mean, there must have been dozens of Army/Navy/Marines/Air Force recruiters on call for the rush of young Rihanna fans coming to join the military. Hell, even perhaps some disabled veterans. That last barb is aimed at one of the characters who happened to be black and had two artificial legs and ended up kicking ass on an alien dude (that looked curiously black as well) before the nerd shows up (out of absolutely nowhere) to clock the alien with his briefcase or something. It was so ridiculous, like saying, hey all you disabled vets, stop bitching and get out there and fight again! Well, it put me off anyway. The fact that every character had either ARMY or NAVY in huge letters on their tight T-shirts was also a bit aggravating. Rihanna could not act her way out of a box (despite her stellar Klout of 96) and the rest of the crew was no better. Now, is this due to a crap screen play or just bad acting? It is hard to say. Even the Liam Neeson character was lame. Oh, and the re-commissioning of the Missouri with the geriatric brigade was simply embarrassing. Rather than playing AC/DC, they should have just put in endless loops of America the Beautiful or God Bless America for all the hoopla in this film. Its only possible saving grace was the effort in the special effects. The aliens with their advanced fighters. But the product placement was almost obscene. The fact that a film of this magnitude stoops itself down to an actual game of Battleship (A31, no G24!!) was pathetic as was using BeyBlade-looking spinner thingys as alien killer weapons (I checked and BeyBlades are also indeed Hasbro products). The blond bimbo (hey, there couldn’t be a movie without one of those, right) was actually (aside from a great body) unattractive and an incredibly poor actress as well.
Overall, the best part about this film was the new preview that was aired for Prometheus. This one barely merits a 1 out of 10 IMHO.
hey what did you expect … to be avoided by all means
Oh no! I was hoping this would be good! I love Liam Neeson and was crossing my fingers that at least he would rock his role and give some perspective to the obviously fan pulling in rest of the cast. Grrrrr, why on why can’t they get better screenwriters! Sure bad acting can kill a film but if the story is solid doesn’t really matter how bad the acting gets the movie still shines. Period. Thanks for the review Fino! Cheers
The trailers looked terrible and your review sort of confirms my suspicions about this film. independance day was actually a bit of cheesy fun and also a bit stupid.
First time visitor and I enjoyed checking out your posts.
Thanks man, I appreciate the compliment and the comment. I wasn’t expecting much, but honestly, it was nearly insulting in its extremes of overbearing patriotism and pedantic dialogs and plot-lines.
Cheers and I hope you’ll check back again
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