Forget about it. I'm not going to use the phrase, "You sank my Battleship!" during the course of this review. That's far too cliche and not at all my style to be cli...wait...damn it--you tricked me! Although, upon further review, such a phrase provides an ideal descriptive for Battleship. It's a movie that is ripe with great battle sequences, but eventually sinks with a shortage of good characters, and quite frankly, good acting.
As our movie opens, we meet Stone (Andrew Skarsgard). He's pretty much a waste. Check that--as the movie opens, Stone is pretty much wasted. We soon learn, however, that the former is true as well. This means that his older brother is taking charge of Stone's life and enlisting him in the Navy. Yes, it's expected that he'll see the world, but he's far more interested in the world seeing him. He's a brash, ego-centric goof long into his Naval service. Sure, he's managed to snag the girl of his dreams, Samantha (Brooklyn Decker), but he's been quite unable to impress her papa, Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson). As he's about to ask the good admiral for his daughter's hand in marriage, all hell breaks loose...literally. A signal sent to a distant earth-like world has prompted a visit from those inhabitants. Let's just say that they're not friendly. So, here we are off the coast of Hawaii, massively outgunned against an enemy we don't really understand. Yadayadayada...Stone grows up long enough to battle some aliens.
I'll go with 2.5 Stars, which is slightly on the south side of okay. There is some strong entertainment value for my testosterone packed readers. If destruction is your thing, there are some very cool cinematic shots in this one. CG is done right in Battleship for certain.
Outside of the sterling CG effects, there really aren't too many positive attributes. I was actually pretty disappointed. The characters are just too fluffy and flippant to really connect with and the actors portraying them, really did little to help that issue. Plus, there are just too many moments that are just a tad too precious. Sure, these are moments that are trying to enhance the story, but they're one-part cliche and one-part unbelievable. Further, the board game component of the flick merely added to the precious cliche, and detracted from the overall entertainment value. Actually, it reminded me why I'd rather play Yahtzee.
Yeah, there are other things that I could talk about: It would have been nice to get to know the enemy and their motivation beyond a mere flash segment. That might have enhanced the overall experience a bit. It' always helpful for an audience to be emotionally committed to hating the enemy beyond the ole, 'They're shooting at us, so we need to shoot at them.'
All in all, there is some entertainment value, but unless you're a 13-year old...or a frat boy, you're probably going to need a tad more in your movie experience. Yes, the summer movie pendulum has swung from the incredible experience created by The Avengers, whose awesome-ness has prompted three viewings, to a pretty disappointing Battleship. In other words, no need to go BIG on this one, unless you really want those destruction sequences. Bottom line: those ARE very cool, but the shortcomings are many, including the acting, which even Liam Neeson couldn't salvage.
True...OUT!
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