Battleship (Peter Berg)

[Sxottlan]

Battleship, directed by Peter Berg.

IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440129/)

http://static.happyplace.com/assets/images/2012/05/4fb13ae1b3600.jpg

[Ivan Drago]

Over/under how many more years till Michael Bay signs on to direct Hungry Hungry Hippos?

[Kiusagi]

Looks like this is bombing with about $30 million for the weekend. Not surprised. Taylor Kitsch is not having a good year.

[Sxottlan]

Bad. Real bad. A number of times it's fun bad, but more often than not it's just ugly bad. Probably the worst thing I've seen so far this year.

Some thoughts:

-From its very premise, the film is broken. I remember seeing the trailer for this and when the alien ship popped up, I thought, really? Seriously? Are they that afraid to offend someone out there by having human antagonists from another country? Why not just make it a World War 2 film? Well, it probably would have still offended the Japanese. I say it's "fun bad" at times because I enjoy naval combat films and we just don't get those anymore. The last was Master & Commander. It makes it all the more infuriating because instead of another Hunt for Red October, we get the most obvious example in years of a slapdash film thrown together from other sources. The military fellatio courtesy of Michael Bay. The AC/DC music seemingly inspired by its use in the Iron Man films. Random alien telepathy courtesy of Roland Emmerich. And on and on.

-The film veers wildly in tone. In this way Peter Berg takes liberally after Bay. Its opening at the bar was genuinely funny and slapstick.

Then it veers into family drama with terrible dialogue. Behold:
"They're going to kick you out of the navy."
"Can't you make some phone calls?"
"I don't know who to call to teach you humility. I DON'T HAVE THE NUMBER!"

I truly laughed out loud in the theater at that one.

-That leads to the next point: truly bad acting. Taylor Kitsch. Dude. John Carter. Now this. Just quit. Please. He goes from annoying to an experienced captain simply because the story demands it. The vet was a whiny asshole. I was hoping the physical therapist might just hand the guy a loaded gun and look the other way. Rihanna walked around with her upper lip curled up into a sneer for most of the movie. The sniveling scientist was obnoxious. If he had such misgivings about the project to contact that planet, why the hell was he there to begin with?

-Plot holes everywhere. Geez. The aliens can travel across interstellar space, but they can't see a satellite to avoid hitting it? Why do they need to contact home anyway? Seems safe to assume the other aliens know where they are. Why not send more troops? The girlfriend and the vet clearly see something amiss when the ships hit the ocean, but they keep walking like nothing has happened. Why does the alien not kill the scientist?

-So many bad things that don't fit into any one category. And despite the trailer, don't think you're going to see lots of ships in action. Only three ships really do anything.

[Morris Schæffer]

-Plot holes everywhere. Geez. The aliens can travel across interstellar space, but they can't see a satellite to avoid hitting it? Why do they need to contact home anyway? Seems safe to assume the other aliens know where they are. Why not send more troops? The girlfriend and the vet clearly see something amiss when the ships hit the ocean, but they keep walking like nothing has happened. Why does the alien not kill the scientist? .

Maybe you're right, but maybe you're not. Which is another why of saying that perhaps the first two aren't plot holes. It doesn't seem completely logical, but who the hell knows how these baddies act, think, work, steer. :)

As for the alien not killing the scientist, I don't fully remember, but wasn't it like Predator where some folks didn't represent a legitimate threat? Still unoriginal though.

[Skitch]

The definition of summer popcorn cliche. Agreed there are tons of plot holes. Biggest of all for me...these ships should be making some giant waves when they leap and slap down. Instead, the heroes are perfectly safe in a little raft as something the size of 100 submarines crashes into the water next to them. Even funnier that that is the catalyst for tracking them later. /facepalm.

There was some good humor, Rihanna was atrocious, some groan-worthy dialogue (that was typed by a person currently watching Star Trek: Next Generation), but the worst offense of all...its basically a 2 hour + version of the trailer. About ten minutes of the climax was all that was left out, and nothing enfuriates me more.

To be honest, I wasn't even going to see this till dollar theater, but I needed to review something and it was this or The Dictator, and I'm even less interested in that.

[TGM]

:/ Poll isn't public.

[number8]

http://www.justpressplay.net/reviews/9420-battleship.html

Can't even muster enough enthusiasm to summarize.

[Spinal]

:/ Poll isn't public.

The poll is public now. But the three people who voted in the previous poll need to vote again.

[TGM]

Yeah, I thought this was fun. Much more enjoyable than I was honestly expecting.

[Sxottlan]

Even funnier that that is the catalyst for tracking them later. /facepalm.

Well, they had to shoehorn in something resembling the game.

[Fezzik]

Bad? Sure? Horrible script and some bad acting? You bet.

I enjoyed it anyway. It was just the right amount of fun and clearly recognized how preposterous it is.

[Kiusagi]

To be honest, I was secretly rooting for this movie to be good, simply because I love seeing everyone get proven wrong. But yeah, it was inevitable. It did have some entertaining moments, so I wouldn't call it totally useless. I suppose there are worse ways to spend two hours.

I actually liked the aforementioned scene where they sorta play the Battleship game. It was the one time I felt the slightest bit of tension. But the subplot involving Brooklyn Decker, the amputee, and the scientist was completely useless. Rihanna was embarrassing, but that was probably more the script's fault than hers, though she certainly did not help. Did anyone else notice the camera footage of Hopper stealing the burrito was a reference to an Internet video of an actual robbery?

I'm not sure what to make of Peter Berg. I thought The Rundown was surprisingly fun and he did a little better here than most expected, but I haven't been impressed by anything he's done, including Friday Night Lights (the movie, not the show). I understand he's doing an actual Navy movie next, so we'll see.

[Ivan Drago]

Please tell me someone says the line "You sunk my battleship!"

[Pop Trash]

Please tell me someone says the line "You sunk my battleship!"

Samuel L. Jackson makes a special cameo just to say this.

[Ezee E]

Samuel L. Jackson makes a special cameo just to say this.
Would be glorious.

[Kiusagi]

There's a sort-of variation on the line, but no. Nobody says it. Clearly the writers did not want to compromise the integrity of their brilliant script.

[Henry Gale]

The chicken burrito heist opening and the ending that eventually calls back on it were probably the most enjoyable stretches of the whole thing for me. It's the sort of stuff Berg seems to be able to do effortlessly, and if you'd stopped me at the half-hour mark for an opinion I might've told you I was liking it. But then the movie had to become the huge, noisy action movie it was given the big bucks to be, and any of those likable or distinct qualities quickly drained from it.

The script is just so weak and the action sequences, the aliens and even the visual scale and lavish effects in it just don't add up to anything particularly cool, original or even enjoyably routine. I, like Kiusagi, kinda/sorta hoped this would've been good because I like Berg, majority of the cast, etc., but there's just not much here to root for or be entertained by in even the most perfunctory, lowest-common-denominator ways.

I mean, the Transformers movies are equally hollow and ultimately stupider movies, but at least they try to do new things.

[Lazlo]

The chicken burrito heist opening and the ending that eventually calls back on it were probably the most enjoyable stretches of the whole thing for me. It's the sort of stuff Berg seems to be able to do effortlessly, and if you'd stopped me at the half-hour mark for an opinion I might've told you I was liking it. But then the movie had to become the huge, noisy action movie it was given the big bucks to be, and any of those likable or distinct qualities quickly drained from it.

The script is just so weak and the action sequences, the aliens and even the visual scale and lavish effects in it just don't add up to anything particularly cool, original or even enjoyably routine. I, like Kiusagi, kinda/sorta hoped this would've been good because I like Berg, majority of the cast, etc., but there's just not much here to root for or be entertained by in even the most perfunctory, lowest-common-denominator ways.

I mean, the Transformers movies are equally hollow and ultimately stupider movies, but at least they try to do new things.

Agreed fully on your second paragraph. The bubble thing, keeping the majority of the fleet on the sidelines, was a huge fuck-you to anyone who expected to see some epic, all-out naval battles. Totally neutered the film's excitement potential.

[number8]

Agreed fully on your second paragraph. The bubble thing, keeping the majority of the fleet on the sidelines, was a huge fuck-you to anyone who expected to see some epic, all-out naval battles. Totally neutered the film's excitement potential.

I dunno, the movie's based on a board game that pits 5 ships against 5 ships. That's exactly what the movie delivered. So isn't it the audience's fault for expecting huge naval battles?

[Raiders]

I think the only way to make something coming from such a silly source would be to have gone a similar route of WarGames and had some AI take over two sets of five battleships and play a game between the two.

Otherwise, it is either a nondescript naval film or you do something really dumb, like add aliens to the mix and knock off Transformers.

[Irish]

Otherwise, it is either a nondescript naval film or you do something really dumb, like add aliens to the mix and knock off Transformers.

I agree it's dumb all around, but it's really a product of minds more interested in cereal box tops and Happy Meal toys than making a watchable movie. In some sense, it was a safe bet: Tranformers has over a billion in US domestic box office alone, and Battleship is a brand name that multiple generations of Americans recognize.

It's the 4 quadrant jackpot! Your problem is starting from a place where movies are about art or even entertainment. :P

This movie was made by the same kinds of product managers that try and sell you 12 different types of toothpaste, 8 different flavors of orange juice, and two dozen sizes of Hot Pocketd at the grocery store. It's deeply cynical, but just the same it probably only failed because they overestimated America's desire for more explosions and underestimated the success of the Avengers.

[Henry Gale]

I mean, in a strange way, I sort of admire them for including that sequence (along with the general idea of the radar being down with the electromagnetic dome) as a way of being true to the board game, because it's at least acknowledging its ridiculous source material and trying its best to capture whatever made them think making a Battleship movie would be cool in the first place. And the buoy tracking bit makes for a mildly exciting action sequence, not to mention it's one that relies the least on its big budget and visual effects.

But maybe I just liked how the alien ship effects looked at night around that section of the movie-- OK, I'm really grasping now.

[number8]

By the way, that chicken burrito opening was garbage.

[Henry Gale]

By the way, that chicken burrito opening was garbage.

Naaaah. I mean, if the movie wasn't Battleship and it just kept that sort of vibe with a different storyline for the whole thing, then I might've loved that movie. It's an extremely silly scene, but I thought it was in a way that actually worked to its advantage, compared to everything later on in the movie that's meant to be taken as serious and intense (with the odd, jokey wink), but ends up having big naval battles leave less of an impact than security camera footage of a convenience store with the Pink Panther theme set to it.

It's nowhere near as embarassing as, say, Shia LaBeouf struggling to fish rolled up documents out of Ken Jeong's back pocket in a bathroom stall... ONLY TO BE SEEN BY A JANITOR. OH NO, SIR, THIS ISN'T WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.

[Pop Trash]

Ken Jeong apparently has American gay panic on lock.

[Dukefrukem]

Yeah, I thought this was fun. Much more enjoyable than I was honestly expecting.

This.

It's nowhere near as bad as the YAYs/NAYs depict.

[Rowland]

Oh I gotta hear your thoughts on this one.It's like a Michael Bay movie with more coherent action sequences, better pacing, and far less hateful social and geopolitics. And while it's stupid, it's an endearingly eccentric brand of stupid that somehow manages to gleefully incorporate the archaic rules of a board game into its narrative while simultaneously exorcising the ghosts of Pearl Harbor with a very spirited conviction. I dug it.

[MadMan]

It's like a Michael Bay movie with more coherent action sequences, better pacing, and far less hateful social and geopolitics. And while it's stupid, it's an endearingly eccentric brand of stupid that somehow manages to gleefully incorporate the archaic rules of a board game into its narrative while simultaneously exorcising the ghosts of Pearl Harbor with a very spirited conviction. I dug it.You almost make me want to rent it. Almost.

[Dukefrukem]

Thank you for reminding me to lower my star rating.

[Rowland]

You almost make me want to rent it. Almost.
Thank you for reminding me to lower my star rating.*shrug*

[Gizmo]

Saw this today. It was not good, but not bad enough to turn off.