Review No.144: Battleship

It seems now that films can be based on anything video games have been a great source of inspiration for film-makers, especially with dirge such as Street Fighter and Doom, while one of the most popular franchises of all time was based on a fairground ride that of course being Pirates of the Caribbean. Board games though on the whole have been left out of the loop with the possible exception of Clue, based on our British Cluedo, but then that has defined characters plus an easy to adapt murder mystery plot. Hancock director Peter Berg has taken up the challenge of directing a film based on a popular board game that has no characters but simply a board full of holes and five plastic vessels yes I'm talking of Battleship. The film stars Berg's old Friday Night Light's colleague Taylor Kitsch, who with this and John Carter isn't having a good year career wise, who stars as Alex Hopper a stereotypical slacker who is in his mid-twenties but has no life to speak of and whose navy Admiral brother Stone wants to do something with his life. After being arrested for an incident involving a chicken burrito Stone finally convinces Alex to sign up to the Navy and seven years later we find him working as a lieutenant but still has a temper on him. Alex is also now dating the daughter of his commander, played by a very gruff Liam Nesson who pops up only occasionally throughout the film and whom I'm betting received a hefty paycheck for his appearance, however after almost getting kicked out of the navy he feels it's not the best time to approach it. At the same time as all this is going on NASA makes contact with five alien ships who come to the Earth with the intention to finish us off and a big shooty battle starts up between the ships operated by the Hopper brothers and company and the alien fleet. During this time Alex has to step up and take responsibility as he finds himself as the most senior officer on the ship and is tasked with finding the aliens' weakness. Meanwhile Alex's girlfriend Samantha is stuck with one of her ex-military clients Mick, she's a very unconvincing physical therapist, who randomly meet up with Hamish Linklater's geeky scientist with the three trying to aid the Navy fleet in their war with the aliens. Eventually the crew have to board  a battleship, that's the name of the film after all, but will hitting G3, H3, I3 sink the aliens? Well unfortunately it's not that sort of film.

On the end credits of Battleship in big writing we are told that the film is 'Based on the Hasbro Game' however I didn't see any evidence of it here. Instead what I saw was a film that had its basis in the Transformer sequels as well as elements of a shoddy War of the Worlds rip-off and a bit of homoerotic Top Gun fun thrown in for good measure. I have to say it did have a semi-promising start with the bar scene between the Hopper brothers however once everybody is aboard their respective ships things start to go downhill fast and there's a lot more shooting than dialogue. Peter Berg is an interesting director because he has made some interesting films in the past, including Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom which was patchy but still had its moments, however when he's handed a massive budget he seems to fudge things up you just have to watch Hancock to see what I mean. Taylor Kitsch is once again playing the handsome male lead however it is Alexander Sarsgaard as his brother who I think lends the most gravitas to the film while as I mentioned Neeson's brief cameos are also worthwhile if few and far between. The one casting choice I have to disagree is R&B superstar Rihanna who is playing Raikes a weapons expert who spends most of the time strutting round looking like a bit of a tomboy but she doesn't do enough to convince you that it's not just the girl who sung Umbrella prancing around in camouflage. In fact when Rihanna is paired up with some of the naval veterans on the battleship they look more likely to be able to successfully operate heavy artillery than she does and at the end of the day she plays the most unconvicing member of the military on screen since Meg Ryan was a fighter pilot. The only briefly entertaining segments of the film were between Brooklyn Decker's Samantha, Hamish Linklater's scientist and Gregory D Gadson's wounded military hero with the three forming an unlikely trio trying to bring down the alien attack in their own way. It is these scenes that provide both humour and heart however as most of the money has been spent elsewhere they don't get as much screentime as the ship bound boys and girls. Personally I think it was a mistake to try and turn Battleship into a film in the first place but I would've made it into a more old school Naval epic rather than a sub-part Transformers rip-off with Rihanna getting more screen time than Liam Neeson. If you enjoy things blowing up with no real plot behind them, so in other words if you're Michael Bay, then you'll enjoy this but if like me you'd rather watch something with substance I'd wait for the Guess Who film to come out as we all know that would be class.

Verdict: Though there are moments of clarity in there overall Battleship has some really bad performances and uses tons of explosions instead of a coherent plot so for that reason I will award it 2.5/10