May 1st, 2012 
Grace Duffy 
Film: Battleship
Director: Peter Berg
Movie studios tend not to be celebrated for their tact, vision, or thoughtful approach to moviemaking. At least, not the bigger ones. So when word came in last year that we would be treated to a big-screen version of a largely defunct Hasbro game (am I the only one who has neither played nor dwelled on Battleship for about 15 years?), the resounding wall of indifference was unsurprising. In an attempt to dress up their obvious designs on Transformers, Universal recruited Liam Neeson (stop me if you’ve heard this one: gruff father [figure], handy in a fight), Taylor Kitsch (before he could sully his reputation with John Carter), and international megastar Rihanna for a shock-horror-her-clothes-stay-entirely-on-throughout role. I was asked to take a bullet for the UTG team and go see this last week and I have to admit that although I was expecting a car crash of gargantuan proportions, it’s not entirely bad. Just almost entirely bad.
So, the plot. In 2005, NASA discover a distant planet with a climate and atmosphere similar to our own. In the great well-meaning manner of all movie scientists, they beam a signal into deep space, inviting any sentient aliens to afternoon tea on Earth, and sit back to play the waiting game. The satellite capable of relaying this signal is controlled out of Hawaii, which is also the home-place of professional layabout Alex Hopper (Kitsch). He is celebrating his birthday with his older brother, Stone (Alexander Skarsgard) – an officer in the Navy and a man of textbook honour. Stone is encouraging Alex to do something worthwhile with his life, when the latter is easily distracted by the arrival of a buxom blonde who requests a chicken burrito. Believe it or not, this sets the entire plot in motion, as Alex breaks into a shop to steal one for her, gets chased and tasered by the police, dunked in a bathtub of ice, and then treated to a needlessly and hilariously aggressive recruitment speech from Stone, who barks at him that he shall be joining the Navy and changing his life. Testosterone, lads: he has it.
We cut to a few years later, when Alex is gradually ascending the ranks in the Navy, though not without some disciplinary issues. He has somehow found himself in a serious relationship with the blonde (Samantha, played by Brooklyn Decker) and intends to ask her father for permission to marry her. I can sympathise – her father is Liam Neeson (as Admiral Shane) and after Taken anyone would be hesitant to make a daughter-related request of the man. The Navy is embroiled in the biennial RIMPAC games (fun fact: these are a thing, I thought they were the most implausible part of the entire film but hey look, I learned something) when alien ships crash into the Pacific Ocean just off Hawaii, and all manner of hell breaks loose. Actually, that’s an overstatement. There’s precious little in the way of wide-scale destruction, as an alien shield separates three Navy ships from the rest of the fleet, while another alien ship crashes into a satellite and then into Hong Kong. The latter ship is apparently a communications device, and the aliens’ entire purpose for the rest of the film is to somehow harness the satellite dishes in Hawaii to beam more messages to deep space and tell their friends to come join the fun.
This gaping plot hole is the first point to note. Why do the aliens need to tell their friends to come and join them when they already know where Earth is, and clearly have designs on it? Why was the entire purpose of their visit to Earth to just send a ‘got here safe’ text home? In any case, one wasn’t expecting a particularly riveting analysis of the alien’s motives, so let’s proceed. Firstly, Battleship isn’t abysmal, as noted above. It is really bad, but it’s very entertaining and genuinely quite funny at times – to sci-fi what Clue was to whodunits, perchance. It’s more deserving of your time than the cacophonous aberrations that were the second and third Transformers films, in spite of its obvious parallels with same – vengeful mechanical wheel machines that sink ships and tear up infrastructure being the most obvious example. Kitsch is always watchable, regardless of the awful movies he finds himself in, and Rihanna isn’t half bad. There, I said it. Her role is a watered-down version of every token female ‘badass’ in every action movie ever, but she holds her own, and this is commendable. The film is also kind of strangely liberal – not for the token piece of oestrogen but rather for its depiction of an amputee former soldier and a group of World War 2 veterans, both of whom contribute more significantly to the final battle than anyone else.
On the down side, the few sequences in space have so much lens flare that you’d be forgiven for thinking JJ Abrams had temporarily taken the reigns. The story is ludicrous, as is to be expected, and the aliens are actually rather short-changed. No one takes the time to notice that they don’t attack people, just machines – indeed, when they notice that you have a heart, lungs, and eyes, they tend to back off. Hell, for all we know, they were trying to cure us of our ridiculously excessive reliance on technology, and got a kick in the teeth instead. They also have very straight, white, impressive teeth, which makes this all the more unfair.
In any case, this is – dare I say – half worth a look if you’re bored enough and possibly in search of something as vacuous as Transformers, but shorter, and with added humanoid aliens. Otherwise, you’re not missing much, but please sign the petition to get Taylor Kitsch a proper acting career. The boy’s done enough time.
Review written by: Grace Duffy (Twitter)
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