Battleship

So it turns out Liam Neeson is hardly in this movie. There’s a bummer. I really counted on him to carry what had the potential to be a disaster. But the movie isn’t actually that bad. Based on the classic board game, Battleship follows a group of naval officers who witness an alien invasion during war games near Hawaii. After the aliens raise a force field, only three naval ships are able to engage the threat. Taylor Kitsch’s unruly character finds himself in charge and must try to save the day.

As I tried to explain what the movie is about to a friend, I realized how ridiculous some of it is. If this guy is untrustworthy and lazy, I doubt he would rise through the ranks of the Navy so easily. Then there is the fact that aliens happen to land right where the Navies of the world are all assembled. I think I saw this in an episode of the GI Joe cartoon in 1990. But the movie improves a bit with some interesting minutes. In place of the expected “you sunk my battleship” moment, the characters use tsunami buoys to find the location of the enemy. This is possibly the least corny way the filmmakers could tie it back to the board game.

The acting is better than expected, but the script is full of campy one-liners and observations that would be better left unsaid. Even Rihanna isn’t as bad as anyone would expect. That’s because the film is a stereotype of what pretentious film critics think of summer blockbusters. It’s big on explosions and special effects. But it’s also fun and entertaining. There is also an obvious effort to include actual servicemen in the project. This is a nice gesture, but when a film has a budget north of $200 million, it would probably be smart to keep the dialogue of untrained actors to a minimum. Did anyone keep track of how many critiques were titled, “Battleship Sinks”? That’s a clever one.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.