Battleship (2012)
Directed by Peter Berg
When mankind beams a radio signal into space, a reply comes from ‘Planet G’, in the form of several alien crafts that splash down in the waters off Hawaii. Lieutenant Alex Hopper is a weapons officer assigned to the USS John Paul Jones, part of an international naval coalition which becomes the world's last hope for survival as they engage the hostile alien force of unimaginable strength. While taking on the invaders, Hopper must also try to live up to the potential that his brother, and his fiancée's father—an Admiral—expect of him.
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What critics say influenced Battleship
The plot sounds like a combination of “Independence Day,” “Armageddon” and “Transformers,” and in many ways, this film tries to replicate the formula that made those three pictures massively successful.
Nevertheless, for a film based on an outdated board game, “Battleship” delivers a nice balance of action and humor that reminded me a lot of another alien invasion movie, “Independence Day.” It’s probably more on par with the first “ Transformers ” than the Roland Emmerich sci-fi classic, but the sheer fact that it's entertaining at all makes “Battleship” more of a hit than a miss.
Simply put, if you have a hankering for a mindless two-hours plus of a movie that combines elements of that along with familiar bits of the "Transformers" films and "Independence Day," you could do far worse than what's offered here.
The script by Erich and Jon Hoeber get away with setting a naval battle at Pearl Harbor by teaming up the Japanese and the Americans against a shared enemy, but they still err just a little too much on humanizing the inhuman villains-- we can deal with either anonymously evil aliens (Independence Day style) or oddly sympathetic ones (District 9 style), but not some middling combination of the two.
There are small moments where the movie achieves the kind of dopey fun Roland Emmerich delivered in Independence Day.
Whereas a movie like Independence Day (in all its cheese) told a globe-hopping story with enough time to take a breath and get to know the people being blown up, Battleship spends over two hours (over two hours!) doing exactly one thing: lobbing explosives back and forth.
Director Peter Berg has crafted an almost fetishistic homage to Michael Bay — like Bay's "Transformers" series, this is yet another action extravaganza inspired by a Hasbro product — with its epic set pieces, swaggering bravado, panoramic skies and cheesy romance.
Peter Berg has crafted a carbon copy of the Transformers series, though while it passes on Michael Bay’s lewd shot portrayal of women, it can’t boast the raw thrills of the first movie either.
The plot sounds like a combination of “Independence Day,” “Armageddon” and “Transformers,” and in many ways, this film tries to replicate the formula that made those three pictures massively successful.
The overuse of generic computer-generated special effects - ie this stuff feels like leftovers from the Transformers series - ensures that the myriad of battle sequences are akin to video game cut scenes, with the resulting absence of context or excitement playing an integral role in the movie's astonishing (and palpable) downfall.
Nevertheless, for a film based on an outdated board game, “Battleship” delivers a nice balance of action and humor that reminded me a lot of another alien invasion movie, “Independence Day.” It’s probably more on par with the first “ Transformers ” than the Roland Emmerich sci-fi classic, but the sheer fact that it's entertaining at all makes “Battleship” more of a hit than a miss.
It borrows much too heavily from other films, especially "Transformers," and its first 20 minutes drag as it details the boneheaded antics of boy-man protagonist Alex Hooper (Taylor Kitsch of "Friday Night Lights") before he lands a gig in the Navy.
He also sets a tempo markedly slower than Michael Bay's, suggesting an affinity with more old-fashioned Hollywood entertainment (the first half hour even references The Best Years of Our Lives and Jerry Lewis's The Bellboy).
I was even able to maintain my composure, just barely, when the double-amputee ex-Army hero played by Iraq vet Gregory D. Gadson —shades of Harold Russell in The Best Years of Our Lives—got his wish to play soldier again.
Meanwhile, we get scenes of the girlfriend, a scientist (Hamish Linklater), and a wounded army vet with prosthetic legs (Gregory D. Gadson, who, in a tip of the hat to “The Best Years of Our Lives,” is the real thing), trying to sabotage the aliens’ communications.
Battleship makes you reconsider every mean thing you ever said about Michael Bay: Compared to this, even Pearl Harbor starts looking good.
For director Peter Berg, whose Hollywood action resume leads with “Hancock” but pales in comparison to Michael Bay’s “Transformers,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Armageddon” and “Bad Boys,” “Battleship” proves that Berg is a worthy adversary as a blockbuster action director.
Hell, so long as I'm comparing this to similar movies, I'll also say that it's a hell of a lot better than 2001's Pearl Harbor, which also featured the Navy and took place around Hawaii.
We get a Transformers takedown of Hong Kong - complete with collapsing Dark of the Moon style skyscraper - as well as callbacks to one of Bay’s worst, Pearl Harbor.
It's pretty much a mash-up of his Transformers and Pearl Harbor in a film that pits seafaring alien forces against the US Navy.
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The film this most reminds me of goes back to the 1980 “The Final Countdown” starring Kirk Douglas, a sci-fi’er in which a modern aircraft carrier gets mysteriously transported back to December 1941 in the hours leading up to the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
Rihanna playing Raikes and Jesse Plemons as Ordy feel like homage to Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein in Aliens (but of course, inferior).
Transformers meets Top Gun in Peter Berg's new blockbuster Battleship , which has its origins in Hasbro's grid-based guessing game.
Based on a video game, the week's expensive blockbuster – the long, loud, ludicrous, mindlessly enjoyable Battleship – was probably sold to Universal studios as Top Gun meets Independence Day .
It makes “Top Gun” look like the work of Orson Welles.
During that time, it has as much in common with the “Transformers” movies as it does with “Armageddon,” “War of the Worlds,” “Battle: Los Angeles” and even the patriotic, gung-ho spirit of “Top Gun.”
For those brief moments Battleship becomes something different, a jaunty mélange of Top Gun patriotism and Starship Troopers looniness.
And Kitsch, who didn't exactly collect out-of-this-world notices for "John Carter," proves detractors wrong by showing he can convincingly carry an action film, even when his character is a "Top Gun" clone.
Defying all logic and probably inspired by the pilot of Battlestar Galactica, the floating museum is quickly returned to fighting shape and the old guys - with all of their vet gravitas - help win the day.
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The plot sounds like a combination of “Independence Day,” “Armageddon” and “Transformers,” and in many ways, this film tries to replicate the formula that made those three pictures massively successful.
For director Peter Berg, whose Hollywood action resume leads with “Hancock” but pales in comparison to Michael Bay’s “Transformers,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Armageddon” and “Bad Boys,” “Battleship” proves that Berg is a worthy adversary as a blockbuster action director.
During that time, it has as much in common with the “Transformers” movies as it does with “Armageddon,” “War of the Worlds,” “Battle: Los Angeles” and even the patriotic, gung-ho spirit of “Top Gun.”
The last section of Battleship is sort of like Antiques Roadshow meets Armageddon, albeit with way too much of the latter and not nearly enough of the former.
The good news is that Berg is all about the earlier, better Bay movies - Armageddon is all over Battleship like the Beatles are all over Oasis.
The extraterrestrial movie that developed so nicely from its B-movie origins such as “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” through the Spielberg cycle of “E.T.” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” has now hit the doldrums.
Didn't these people ever watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind , or any other sci-fi film for that matter?