Battleship

Year: 2012
Director: Peter Berg
Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Tadanobu Asano, Liam Neeson


Plot: When a navy fleet taking part in an exercise off the coast of Hawaii are attacked by aliens, brash and impulsive naval officer Lt. Alex Hopper has to man up and lead his crew in a fight for their lives.


Review: Battleship is based on the famous board game of the same name, though I have never played it. In this film, the US Navy take on huge alien vessels who are superior in technology and firepower.

Peter Berg, who directed The Kingdom and The Rundown (two great action films), gets to be Michael Bay this time around. Berg is always executing huge action sequences in his films, except this time he has more toys to play with. As a result, the carnage you see here is massive, not unlike the Transformers films are well known for.

But Berg isn't just a director, he's an actor too. Thus he spends some time developing his characters and deserves credit for that. It's also good to know that the characters in Battleship are more interesting than the ones in Transformers. I know I keep making comparisons to that film, but it's Hasbro, so whatever.

Taylor Kitsch, fresh off playing John Carter, gets the lead role again as the irresponsible Alex Hopper. He starts out as being very hard to like, being the kind of guy that gets himself in trouble pretty easily, but slowly evolves into the hero we all know he will be. Alexander Skarsgard also does well as Alex's wiser older brother Stone. I wish he had more screen time here. Brooklyn Decker is basically eye candy for the male audience, but if you guys don't like blondes, there's always Rihanna.

The film however suffers a bit thanks to its unbelievably corny dialogue. For example, do people still use lines like "we'll all die, but not today" ? Really, they can do better than that. The film also starts a bit sluggishly as Berg introduces us to Alex (rather amusingly actually), and it takes a while before it really gets going. But once the aliens attack, it's action all the way. Berg even pays homage to the board game in one scene, which was cool.

Battleship is almost as fun as Transformers, and would have been just as good if their script was up to par. Nonetheless, it's a lot of fun to sit through. (3.5/5)


P.S.: Stay tuned till the credits finish rolling.