Battleship (2012)

 
Battleship ain't no Avengers.

The grammar in the above sentence made me cringe, but there's really just no other way to say it.

Like The Avengers, Battleship is a big budget summer movie that delivers tons of action, some eye-popping visuals, and even a few doses of cheesy patriotism. Unlike The Avengers though, Battleship is all but devoid of solid characters, emotion, and an intelligent story to fill out the action. Oh, and the dialogue is pretty bad too.

I think that Battleship is what many people expected The Avengers to be; a mindless, fun, visually pleasing action fest, that was hollow on the inside and offered no depth of script, directing and acting.

See, it's pretty cool looking...

Peter Berg once directed a movie called The Kingdom. For those of you unfamiliar with that movie, The Kingdom was a tight, tense movie about an FBI investigation into the bombing of an Army Barracks in the Middle East. It was a great movie, which was as action filled as it was emotional. Had Berg been able to follow that same template with Battleship, it would have been far more rewarding and surprising.

I guess the point I'm trying to get across here is if you like your action flicks huge with tons of spectacle, and you don't care if the characters are original, the story is cliche, and the dialogue is painfully hard to swallow, then Battleship will make you happy.

Ooh, shiny!

It really, really, really felt like a Michael Bay movie, only less good. The script was so shallow and weak, that it honestly felt like they just lifted scenes and gags from every other action movie that has come before it:  

"A misfit hero is on the verge of losing everything he knows and cares about when he's thrust into the middle of a crazy conflict. Now, only he can save the world, but first he must mature and gain the trust of his fellow soldiers, all of whom think he's a loose cannon of a maverick. Can he learn what love and duty mean in time, or is everyone doomed because he's the only chance they've got?"

As cheesy and generic as the whole thing was, I have to give credit to one scene that sucked me in; the Veterans.It was uber-cheesy, but for some reason I ate it up.

Come on, Rihanna... you... you don't really think you can act, do you?

I feel bad for Taylor Kitsch. He was so good in Friday Night Lights (TV), but this year he added the atrocious John Carter and now Battleship to his resume, both of which do nothing for his career. Hopefully he can move past them to find better roles, because the kid has some talent. And what is with Rihanna showing up in this? Girl is a singer not an actor. What about Alexander Skarsgard? He was good, right? Meh. He did what he could.

For the record, Liam Neeson does little in this movie aside from providing some "comic" relief. If you're going to see Battleship because he's in it, just know he doesn't have a big or important role.

The look on her face pretty much says it all for us too.

This movie earns a C- based on eye candy alone. If it weren't for the big, crazy, action set pieces, there's be nothing else to enjoy here. Peter Berg and his cast are all capable of much better than this, but then this is the summer blockbuster game, and it's not really about quality so much as bankable spectacle at this level, is it? If you want some big, dumb fun, then go check this out. If you can't stand mindless, derivative glitter, then go see The Avengers again.

Only one of Brooklynn Decker and little miss Rihanna look hot in this movie, the other spends the movie looking worried and sweating a lot. Either way, we're fine with that.