Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker
Director: Peter Berg
I am freely admitting I really, really enjoyed Battleship. This movie has taken a beating with critics and moviegoers alike even before the movie was released! "This is why Hollywood sucks - they think they can take a board game and make it into a movie! What assclowns!" But these are the same people who will praise Pirates of the Caribbean - a movie based on theme park ride. Of course this movie isn't going to be the greatest, nor does it claim to be. What it says it will deliver - a lot of action - it does. And boy, it's pretty exciting and fun!
Now the movie starts off pretty lame - I was really expecting the worst and I got it for the first 15-20 minutes. I mean, you don't even get to see them on a ship until after the opening exposition (there is A LOT of exposition). There's even a really corny and Top Gun-esque soccer match that doesn't live up to the excitement the movie wanted you to feel (and it doesn't even have underlying homo-eroticism!). Seriously, if this is supposed to be about AMERICA'S NAVY fighting off hordes of alien invaders, then why the hell would us Americans want to watch the sissy man's sport of soccer?!? C'mon Hasbro, think! I'd rather them be playing lacrosse or water polo than this boring sport.
So yeah, the movie started off a bit rocky, but once the alien scouting ships (and that's what they are - the whole point is that the aliens are checking to see if Earth is prime for some plunderin') land and lock all of Hawaii into their special high seas Terrordome. Shit gets real, real quick. And it's up to Taylor Kitsch to save the day and not only become a hero, but become the man he was meant to be and live up to his potential. I'm not gonna lie - I love Kitsch. He could do 10 or so really, really bad movies and I still would forgive him. That's the power of Tim Riggins, folks. Clear eyes, full heart, can't lose.
So yeah there's a lot of action and it's actually really fun - the movie builds up to the be-all end-all of Battleship sequences. They pretty cleverly add elements of the board game into the actual scene. At one point, both the American and alien warships can't see each other (due to some hokey fluke in the radar and other stuff - does it really matter?) and so they have to try to take out the ships by guessing where they're going to land on a grid (get it? like the game!). It sounds super lame, but it was only slightly lame and actually this is where I think the movie is totally winking at the camera. They know they're being super lame, but you know what? Whatever, man. That's the attitude this movie has and I appreciated them for their honesty.
The film is already considered a big flop (although worldwide it's probably going to make $300 million, which isn't terrible, but not so great either) and I feel like people really never gave the movie a chance. I want to remind everyone that Michael Bay had nothing to do with this movie and so it's actually a really good Michael Bay action blockbuster without all that awful Michael Bay stuff getting in the way! Seriously, the movie is worth seeing - whether on the big screen or at home - it's a big, dumb action movie that knows it's a big, dumb action movie.
Rating: See It!
No comments:
Post a Comment