Last week it was the turn of the Titanic to set forth on her maiden doomed voyage in 3D, and marine adventures continue this week with Battleship , which sets its alien invasion on Pearl Harbor (one tends to forget it is a place as much as it is an event.) Incidentally, the movie Pearl Harbor was directed by Michael Bay who also directed the Transformer films. So if you like that kind of relentlessly noisy movie, then Battleship is the ticket for you.
This film comes from the Hasbro Studio and like the Transformer movies, is based on a game, is awfully noisy and has an Obama moment. Wall-to-wall CGI doesn't rescue Battleship , which lurches from a non-existent plot to poorly-realised characters before finally running aground on unimaginative CGI. The explosions, the machines, the ships, the characters, the dialogue, everything is deadly dull. Actually, instead of all that fire power, the filmmakers should have made the aliens watch this film and they would've surely died of boredom.
Taylor Kitsch who was saving Mars as John Carter the last time around now saves the world from aliens out to set up something or the other in the Pacific Ocean. He continues to look good if slightly dazed, but that must be because of the truly terrible film he has found himself in.
Liam Neeson, who, a couple of weeks ago, was bonding big time with Ralph Fiennes in Wrath of the Titans , looks quite handsome in navy whites as Vice Admiral Shane. Oh, and there is also musician Rihanna as Petty Officer Cora Raikes. She looks cute and tough — but why did she choose this clunker for her big screen debut?
The movie has its moments — when CCR's “Fortunate Son” makes a welcome appearance or the shot of a great white shark swimming by the alien ship grinning cheerfully and lines such as “This is an extinction level event” or “Let's see if we can buy the world another day”. The moments are unfortunately few and far between.
Battleship
Genre: Sci fi
Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgård, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano
Director: Peter Berg
Storyline: Aliens attack and the U.S. Navy saves the world
Bottomline: Hectic and irredeemably noisy
