Saturday, October 13, 2012

Battleship (2012)


JohnnyTwoToes returns with one more great review !


Battleship (2012) as all of you should already know is based on the Hasbro game of the same name but, other than the name and a few details it is a film that defines summer; a big, dumb fun popcorn movie that I liked. 

Battleship stars Taylor Kitsch as Alex and Alexander Skarsgard as his brother Stone. Alex is a trouble maker and after several brushes with the law, is forced into the United States Navy by Stone. Their Commanding Officer is Admiral Shane, played by the always reliable Liam Neeson. As expected, Alex falls for the Admiral's daughter, Sam played by Brooklyn Decker.

Alex gets into more trouble than you could shake a stick at while he is on active duty in the Navy and gets warned with dishonorable discharge when all hell breaks loose (while the fleet is on maneuvers at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii). It seems evil aliens have intercepted a communication from one of our satellites and have decided to invade earth and annihilate the planet. 

We have seen all this before, but I liked how the film was constructed from this point onwards. If you have ever played the board game Battleship, you will instantly recognize how the film makers have thought out how to pay homage to the game but create their own film. Battleship has plenty of energy, style and lots of fun action. Is it silly? Yes. But Director Peter Berg (The Rundown) and writers Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber pepper the film with diverting subplots that give us a break from the action, enough to get into the characters. 

Berg, being an actor himself for a long time, knows how to construct an action film but still not overwhelm the viewers with pummeling special effects and one dimensional characters. I was into this movie and actually enjoyed it more than any of the Transformer films, (if that gives you a frame of reference). The acting is decent and even singer Rihanna is actually able to hold her own against the other leads though some of the dialogues and the plot may seem all cliche!

The ending however is so far fetched that I laughed out loud at the level of entertainment that the makers were going for. I know this hardly seems to be a sparkling recommendation for a film. All the reasons I have listed USUALLY are reasons to stay away from a film like this. Yet, for all of it's bombastic ludicrousness, Battleship is one of those awkward films that caught me in the right mood. Is it going to win awards? No. Is it Shakespeare? definitely No. Did I have fun? A big Yes. Battleship is bug, dumb, fun. Nothing more. Nothing less. Battleship is now available on DVD. Battleship-*** out of 4.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...