So my loving wife surprised me with this one last week after renting it from Redbox. So we watched it… it was okay… I guess?
Okay, I’m not really going to bash a movie that personally I thought was dead on arrival when I first saw the previews, but then turned out to be not as bad as I thought it would be. But come on, a movie based on the game Battleship? Don’t go in with high standards on this one.
Okay so the movie starts out with a Naval officer (Played by Eric from True Blood eeeek!!) taking care of his deadbeat jobless brother played by Taylor Kitsch. After being arrested, his brother makes him sign on with the Navy. Funny, I could have sworn that the military takes issue with bringing in people with a criminal record, but I’m going to let that one slide for plot’s sake.
The movie then transitions… if you can even call it that, to the next scene where Taylor is suddenly a Lt. in the Navy and dating an admiral’s daughter, whom he met earlier. Um… when did this happen? HOW MUCH TIME PASSED!? The movie never really says. You can’t just fade to the next scene without explaining SOMETHING! Come on movie!
Moving on…
The Plot *** SPOILER ALERT!!!***
So Taylor and his brother are both serving in the same fleet, in the same destroyer group no less… something I’m pretty sure the Navy would never allow to happen for reasons I’ll address later. Anyway, even in the military, Taylor is a screw up. Imagine, a guy who’s a screwup at life, is a screw up in the Navy. This all culminates in a fight between the Taylor and a Japanese captain which takes place after a good will soccer game between to two crews.
The Admiral, played by Liam Neeson, gives the two of them a severe dressing down and pretty much tells Taylor that this fleet excercise will most likely be his last. So the Taylor boards the USS John Paul Jones and quickly gets a message that a chopper is on it’s way over and someone on board wants to speak to him. It turns out his brother is onboard, who happens to be in command of the lead destroyer in the group. Yeah they wasted fuel, a chopper, and a chopper crew’s time so that this guy could yell at his little brother… I wonder how Eric is going to justify this requisition order to the admiralty. Do I smell misuse of naval equipment?
Anyway, Eric informs the Lt. that he’s getting kicked out of the Navy by the JAG corps. Taylor pleads with his brother to call someone to help him, but there is no one. He also now has to inform his girlfriend, played by another Tara Ried clone, that he wasn’t able to ask Liam Neeson for his daughter’s hand in marriage. At this point, it would probably take an act of nature to ever make him say yes.
Okay so at the same time all this is going on, NASA has discovered a planet that is almost identicle to Earth. So you would think they would survey the planet for a few years, see what they can find out about it, you know… things that make sense. Nope, instead they invest millions to set up a communications array to talk to who (or what) may be on that planet. Okay, who authorized this? Need I point out the many problems, the first being that they don’t even know if anyone is there who would be capable of recieving the signal!!
So anyway, they detect 5 incoming signatures inbound from an unknown location… flying in formation. Whatever these 5 things are, aparently they don’t have very good pilots as one of them, that happens to be the communications ship, crashes into an orbiting satilite and get’s destroyed. So they can navigate millions of lightyears to get from one planet to another, but they can’t avoid a damn orbiting piece of space junk? Really?
Sigh… anyway, they crash land just off Hawaii and Neeson sends a formation of three destroyers, including the John Paul Jones, and Eric’s destroyer, in to investigate. So they see this wierd object sticking up out of the water and send a launch, commanded by Taylor, to investigate. It’s a three man clue including… wait a minute… is that Rihanna!? Holy crap, that’s Rihanna!!!
In all seriousness, you see her earlier on, and she’s acting like a typical Michelle Rodriguez “tough chick” persona. Which, knowing a few of her songs, I really have a hard time buying into. It’s even harder to buy as they make no real effort to beef her up at all in terms of muscle mass and she looks like the same skinny pop star you see in her music videos… minus the freaky red hair!
Back to the plot, this ship activates some unusual forcefield that encompasses all of Hawaii and goes out just far enough that the only ships from the fleet not cut off from Hawaii are the John Paul Jones, Eric’s destroyer, and a Japanese destroyer commanded by the Captain from earlier.
So they attempt to communicate and are met with supposed hostilities… I guess and decide to fire a warning shot. The alien ship sees the warning shot and responds in kind, except that their shot hits the bridge of the John Paul Jones, killing the captain and first officer, who I’m pretty sure would be in CIC and not on the bridge at this point… oh well.
Hilarity ensues when the crew the the launch actually attempts to fight back with a single machine gun mounted on their craft. You would think they’d do the smart thing and retreat, but no that would make sense. So now Eric sees that his brother is in trouble and orders his destroyer in to try to save the three people on the launch… Okay, reality check here, the destroyers featured in this movie are Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers (DDGs). At any time, they have about 300 people on board. Eric is now putting his ship in harms way against a clearly superior enemy to save three people. Remember what I said about the Navy not allowing family to serve together? THIS IS WHY!!!
Anyway, it looks like both brothers will most likely be up for a court martial now… but nope, the Alien destroys Eric’s ship, killing everyone onboard. 300 people gone… Taylor, finally realizing he has to retreat, get’s back to the John Paul Jones and realizes that he is the senior-most officer onboard. The chief tells him that he needs to take command, which he does and orders HIS destroyer in to attack.
Another reality check here… the man is emotionally compromised and a chief of the boat is more than capable of commanding if the need arises, and clearly it has. Nope, so another 300 people are being put at risk to satasfy Taylor’s bloodlust. The Japanese destroyer tries to back him up, only to suffer the same fate as Eric’s destroyer. Except this time, there are survivors in the water. Does Taylor care? Nope, he’s too busy blinded by hatred and revenge to worry about 300 drowning men. The chief finally convinces him to break off the attack to save the men, when he had more then enough reason to relieve Taylor of duty, and they go rescue the japanese crew.
I’m sorry, did this movie even have a military advisor on duty when they filmed it!?
So after rescuing the crew of the other ship and somehow that’s never really explained, not getting blasted themselves, the John Paul Jones fights back. In a strategy very reminiscent of BATTLESHIP itself, they manage to blast two alien ships.
Meanwhile on land, Taylor’s girlfriend is a therapist trying to help a wounded warrior with his recovery. Through a few plot contrivenses I’m not even getting into, they meet up with the scientist who designed the system and discover that the ship that crashed in China was the communication’s ship and the aliens are now attacking Hawaii to gain control of the com system that they were contacted with in the first place.
One thing I would like to say about this guy, he’s an asshole. I mean that planely. This jackass designed the system, contacted the alien race, may have doomed Earth, but when asked to help, he refuses to. He’s eventually forced at gunpoint to go in his old compound to get a transmitted to let the John Paul Jones know that they need to destroy the com array before the aliens can use it to call for reinforcements.
Taylor get’s the message and moves in to destroy the com array, but they are already being chased by an alien ship. The ship eventually catches them and destroys the John Paul Jones. So now all hope seems because… they don’t have any other ships…
So you’re going to tell me that all of Pearl Harbor cleared out for the Naval excercise, there isn’t a single ship getting refit, repaired, or was just protecting the harbor.
But wait, there’s a perverbial light over Taylor’s head. Aparently there is a ship still in the Harbor. As the movie’s name is BATTLESHIP, aparently an actually Battleship must now appear in this movie and so… you’re kidding me… The USS Missouri!? No… no, I’m sorry the movie has completely lost me now. The Missouri… really?
A few problems here: 1. That ship hasn’t been under her own power in almost 20 years. the effort required to put those boilers back into operation — and get all the reduction gear to turn that steam into turns on the screws is really tremendous. Nothing has been oiled or lubed in years. Rust sets in, equipment has been removed and things are changed to allow access for museum visitors. Replacement parts would have to be indivdually crafted. All that, plus she’s not fueled up, she has no armorments, but suddenly within a matter of minutes they are able to get all that onboard and fire up her engines. All this with the help of… retired military personel dating from WW2 to Vietnam??? UGH!!! Look, the Missouri was updated since these wars people, these veterans, no disrespect intended, are not going to be familiar with the current systems on the ship! Finally, any gun owner will tell you that if you have a gun that hasn’t been fired in 20 years, YOU DON’T SHOOT THE DAMN THING UNTIL YOU’VE HAD IT LOOKED AT BECAUSE IT COULD EXPLODE!!!!
Okay… breathing… breathing… calming down now…
Last point, the Missouri isn’t a destroyer, she can’t maneuver and she’s slow by comparison to modern ships, yet she somehow avoids getting hit for most of the time she’s active. I did like the one line where she get’s her aft turret blasted and the old man in the engine room says, “Don’t worry, they aren’t sinking this ship!”
That was kind of cool…
So they save the day and destroy the ship holding the forcefield in place, the Navy rushes in and wipes out the remaining aliens, and Taylor finally get’s to ask Liam Neeson for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Perhaps the only part of the movie I thought was well-done was this one, because I would have done the exact same thing. The man works up the courage and asks the admiral. Neeson looks at Taylor for a moment and then says no. He then goes on to say that saving the world is one thing, but his daughter is something different entirely. After a few moment’s of evil glaring, the admiral smiles and says “Come on, we’ll discuss the terms of your surrender over lunch. Okay, that had me laughing. So the movie ends on a high note.
**Spoiler over.***
My main problem with this movie is that there is no backstory. Oh sure, the character development is there, but they never actually get into why the aliens are attacking. We do see a brief flashback or foreshadowing of a planet-wide war, but it’s never fully explained out. I don’t understand what’s going on or why. This just screams of being another flashy Michael Bay movie with mindless explosions.
Is it a bad movie? No, it has it’s moments, it’s enjoyable… but is it a good movie for anyone who likes more depth than overused CGI… not by a longshot.