Review: Battleship

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Battleship posterWhether or not it's a fair comparison, people are going to think about Michael Bay when they watch Peter Berg's movie Battleship. This movie proves though, that only one person can do Michael Bay action correctly, and his name isn't Peter Berg.

Battleship is every bit the type of film that you can "turn your brain off to." It isn't going to win over a lot of critics, and it may not even win over the casual moviegoer, but give it some time after the first 30 minutes or so and you'll either not care anymore and enjoy the ride, or you'll just have to brace yourself for a pretty miserable 90 more minutes of what you just sat through.

Based on the famous board game of the same name, Battleship starts out with a bizarre storyline. Scientists have apparently figured out that they can send a signal to a galaxy that has a similar planet to ours and so, you know, they do it. A few years later, an alien invasion begins. That's pretty much it. There are other characters and storylines of course, but they're just footnotes on the outlandish actions scenes that dominate the movie after the 30-minute mark.

Some of the characters include Lieutenant Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), who is dating Admiral Shane's (Liam Neeson) daughter Sam (Brooklyn Decker). Alex is also the brother of Commander Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård). Stone is the overachieving opposite of Alex's wasted potential despite his skill. Battleship has a large cast of smaller characters but the story pretty much revolves around those four people.

The story taking such a small focus is one of the biggest problems with Battleship. The film had an opportunity to make a really epic story with an international and world-ending focus similar to Independence Day, but instead chose to literally put all of the main characters in a bubble (you'll see what I mean). It was a matter of silly convenient timing that the aliens attack during RIMPAC, a multinational war games event hosted by naval battle forces of dozens of different countries, but then the film completely ignores the fact that the other countries could maybe help fight off the aliens, and those forces are nowhere to be seen.

Cheesy dialogue, a few shots of really bad CGI (although for the most part I did think the effects were pretty good), and silly audience pandering just made for a bad experience watching Battleship. It wasn't funny when it tried to be, and they even manage to create a board game-like scenario but by that point it just seems too dumb to even care about the film anymore.

The comparison might not be fair, but there's something to be said for the care that Michael Bay puts into his movies despite all the destruction and mayhem of buildings and cars. He usually writes them himself and therefore has complete control over the product, and it shows here. Peter Berg just seems out of his element on this film. You can't out-Michael Bay Michael Bay. I'm not even sure he can.

Texas connections: Director Peter Berg's previous efforts include developing the long-running Austin-shot TV series Friday Night Lights, not to mention writing/directing the 2004 movie of the same name. The cast includes FNL alums Taylor Kitsch and Jesse Plemons (who's from Dallas).