“Battleship” Movie Review
Battleship is based on the best selling game from Hasbro just in case your wondering it’s not a computer game but a bored game where you get to sink your opponents ships by guessing where their ships are located.
Thankfully the plot for this movie is a tad more exciting then rolling a dice and moving tiny pieces of plastic around a bored. Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) a screw up in the American navy has to take charge of a battleship ,when an alien invasion decides to wage battle against his ship in the ocean just of the coast of Hawaii.
At first when I heard this film was based on a bored game I was a little shocked as I wondered how on earth they could do it. It was basically the equivalent of making a film out of the game tiddlywinks.
Well I got to say I was very pleasantly surprised with the end result and can certainly say it was just over 2 hours of well spent time.
That’s not to say however that the film was without flaws. For example how on earth were the aliens that stupid as to fly into a passing satellite (The one that attracted them of humanities existence) at the start of the movie. Whilst this was essential for the plot I found it quite hard to believe they could travel millions of miles across the galaxy, and then screw up as they were about to land. I also think the alien characters where a bit underdeveloped. I had a feeling the scriptwriter wanted to say something more about the aliens but did not have the time. I say this because Yes the aliens were definitely invading the world but they did not seem that hostile, as they where not killing everyone in site (In fact some scenes clearly showed them avoiding killing people) and they seemed to have a liking for horses.
I also think their was a bit of a waste of the actors both Alexander Skarsgård and Liam Neeson appeared fairly briefly in the movie. One appearing only in the first half of the movie whilst the other appeared to be just peppered throughout the movie in small amounts. Its sad that the best actors in the film turned out to be the ones most wasted.
Taylor Kitsch is far more likeable in this movie than anything else I have seen him in (John Carter) but he still has a very dull cinematic presence. Even supporting characters like Rihanna seemed to have more personality.
This movie also had one of The most cheesiest scenes I have witnessed in a movie. I am sure this scene was written in as a sense of pride for navy veterans (In fact this movie was meant to open over Memorial weekend in America), but it was so corny that at first people in the cinema was stunned silent with it’s cringeworthness and then started to laugh. This I doubt was not what the people behind “Battleship” wanted.
On the plus side this movie has a lot going for it, for once in a long time we have an alien invasion that is just that little bit different to the norm. Theirs plenty of action with some impressive special effects (just wait until you see the flying wheel like things that shred things up). And the storyline is actually rather good and above all entertaining.
I am also most impressed with the use of a genuine disabled actor Gregory D. Gadson who has lost both legs. Its something we see far too little of in the cinema disabled people acting and being positive role models. And I really liked the fact that his character told a uplifting story of a man who thought he was on the scrapheap of life, as in his characters own words he was “half a man”. To going to someone that helps save the day, showing no matter how disabled you are you can save lives and make the world a better place.
All in all the cast did a decent job of acting and I was quite surprised that Rihanna was not as bad as I thought she was going to be, although I think she was outdone in the acting stakes by her fellow minor characters.
If your after a fun alien invasion movie that certainly outguns and shoots down the terrible “Battle Los Angeles” and the woefully terrible “Skyline”. Or if you just after action with a good script then this movie is well worth seeing
I give it a 8 out of 10
