Beamin
Battleshit was awful on so many levels that I almost lost count. Almost.
Salacious B. Crumb
I highly doubt Peter Berg will ever be given the keys to the mailbox at his apartment complex after this colossal failure, let alone another big budgeted franchise film.
Shamisoshea
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Shamisoshea: You Sunk my Summer List
The Summer Big Board has suffered it's first causality, the first fraud on the list exposed. Battleship was a failure in essentially every aspect a summer blockbuster can fail. Critically, financially, and worse of all a let down to the viewers. I was fully aware that I was putting my top 10 list in a vulnerable position when I placed it at 8, it's not like I didn't see the warning signs. It's based on a board game, the alien invasion plot is dreadfully played out, all the reviews from pre screening it were generally negative. Still, it put out a couple of trailers that made me think perhaps they had chopped up enough good action scenes and sci fi thrills to make it a fun watch. Even more so I was rooting for it because it was the second starring vehicle for Taylor Kitsch, a guy that I want to see make it because I'm loyal to a fault. I was invested in Tim Riggins 5 year journey to manhood on FNL, and stupid as it is I find myself invested in Taylor Kitsch's acting career. So I was rooting a little too hard for this movie when I put it in my top 10, but even with a built in bias towards the movie couldn't prevent me from being horribly disappointed with the final product.
The first 30 minutes or so had some heart, Alexander Skasgard didn't have enough to do in the movie but was believable as watchful older brother concerned for the direction of his screw up brothers life. Brooklyn Decker was your standard eye candy, nothing rousing or damning about her performance, and the few scenes she shared with Taylor their chemistry was believable. Kitsch didn't do anything great but he was well enough delivering some funny lines early and playfully trying to avoid asking Deckers father Liam Neison for her hand in marriage. A decent story was being told until that point and then the movie fell off a cliff.
The Aliens show up and all of a sudden ever character in the movie dries up. Kitsch goes from a talented but screw up prone good guy to becoming a cardboard character. Liam is on the sideline for the majority of the movie, Decker's struggle to stop the aliens from communicating with their home world is groan inducing, and as I referneced Skasgard simply doesn't have enough to do. The supporting cast regurgitates the swill they were given to recite with respectable vigor, it's just so cheesy and cringe inducing that you have no choice but to basically hate them. You almost want to see this crop of navy men slaughtered if it weren't for the fact the aliens were even lamer.
Which brings us to perhaps the most damning aspect of the movie is that I don't think you ever really know what in the hell the aliens are after. It's never clear if they are just fact finding or hell bent on destroying the earth. The aliens themselves are pathetic, they look like hippies who's eyes occasionaly become reptilian. They can't see very well and apparently there sonar technology isn't on par with there traveling lightyears through space tech. They seem to have one great weapon in this razor spinning contraption, it slices through Hawaii and battleships with no ease but seem content to trade missile attacks with Earths weapons. Their infantry was even more embarrassing as they were fought to a stand still by an army vet with prosthetic legs, a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model, and a nerd channeling his inner Jeff Golblum.
There's no way around it, Battleship is a three legged dog that can't be ushered out of cinema's fast enough. I highly doubt Peter Berg will ever be given the keys to the mailbox at his apartment complex after this colossal failure, let alone another big budgeted franchise film. Might be time to get to work on that Friday Night Lights movie he's always talking about.(Please Lord)
I honestly want to kick my own ass Fight Club, firstly for getting the sacred name Fight Club near the wretched name Battleship, but mainly for being so foolish as to include it in my top 10. Peter Berg thanks a lot "you sunk my summer list".
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Salacious B. Crumb: Battleshit
Walking out of Battleship Wednesday night, I almost instantaneously felt the itch to wrap my fingers around some cold steel and deliver the devastating chair shot it so richly deserved here on MHB.
That's where I come in.
Battleshit was awful on so many levels that I almost lost count. Almost.
It
was just a mindless amalgamation of Transformers, Top Gun and War of
the Worlds. It splintered off in so many different damn directions that
it didn't commit itself to one single thing (other than cheese) and had
plot holes big enough to house the entire Spanish fleet.
The acting was bad. The dialogue was laughable. I
spent an estimated 10 minutes of the movie with my head buried in my
hands because of secondary embarrassment.
This
movie would have flown with me when I was about 12-years-old. Satisfies
all the senses of your typical summer action flick other than the
brain. Again, such a patchwork of action/alien concepts with only a
half-hearted attempt to tie itself to the board game.
And to add insult to injury, Man of the World Liam
Neeson is in the movie and kicks exactly zero ass. This movie was
exactly one "you sunk my battleship" one-liner away from receiving my
lowest rating. The fact that it showed at least that much restraint is
the only sliver of respect it will receive from me.
If Shane pulls a Hulk Hogan and runs down to the
ring to save Battleship (Macho Man) from an epic chair shot at the hands
of the Hart Foundation and the Honkey Tonk Man, I'm gonna be pissed.
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Beamin: You Sunk my Battleship! No just Taylor Kitsch's Career
Since the first preview of Battleship, which I was totally sure was the nextinstallment of Transformers, I have been a bit skeptical. Seeing giant robots taking out buildings and wreaking havoc looked all too familiar. However, I love my boy Riggins so there was no doubt I was buying a ticket. Unfortunately, unlike most movies I see this one lived up to my expectations. Just in this case I expected it to be awful.
I’ll start with what I did like about the movie. Brooklyn Decker was very hot and Taylor used to play Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights. Now onto what sucked…..Everything else.
The action scenes were awful and nothing reallyhappened that I will remember in two weeks. The Aliens had them completely outmatched the whole first half of the movie, to a point where it was frustrating to watch. Then the tides completely shifted, except they never give a good reason why. Just all of a sudden the aliens are totally vulnerable and we are mopping them like it is nobody’s business.
Battleship was full of your typical alien invasion clichés. The aliens come to Earth totally unprepared. They have the technology to build ships that can fly from outer space but they lacked the technology to lock onto a target, even a target sitting still in the water. Then of course there were the very premature assumptions made about the aliens that turned out to be true. The way they figure out the alien’s weakness to sunlight is hilarious.
They objectify Brooklyn Decker, which is all fine and dandy, but for whatever reason they felt the need to make Decker’s character intertwine way too much with the storyline. Her story and contributions did nothing for the film.
Finally, the movie just didn’t try to do anything new. It was at least a littleinteresting to see the battleships doing their thing. Would have worked betterto have just made the movie where America went to war with another country.Then the character Kitsch played is just way too overused. The rebellious, overly talented but uninspired, surprisingly genius character has been used so many times it makes me sick. They didn’t add any new dynamic to the character and truthfully he delivered his lines pretty poorly in my opinion. I also
really enjoyed that Rihanna was in the film pointlessly, I guess Michelle Rodriguez was busy.
I’ve never given them any time to watch but I would guess that this movie falls in line with Battle for Los Angeles and District 9. These movies need to stop. Independence Day is the only one so far that really nailed it in my opinion. Let’s give the aliens some credit in the future. In Signs it is so stupid that the aliens are vulnerable to water so they attack a planet that is 2/3 water and target humans which are over 2/3 water. Then the War of the Worlds aliens which have the foresight to plant ships in Earth so they can one day attack but don’t have the foresight to look into our diseases or bacteria. I don’t think any actor has ever had back to back flops on the scale of John Carter From Mars, then Battleship. Oddly, thecheapest of the films he will be in is Savages which I personally think isgoing to be Taylor’s only chance at not going under with the sinking ship that is his career.
Sounds like the kind of movie that I will enjoy watching. Thanks for the review, boys!
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