Battleship

Is there anything in Battleship that wasn't borrowed from some other source? Let's see...The movie itself is loosely inspired by the board game of the same name. The plot and characters seem to be ripped directly out of the recent live action Transformer films, or Independence Day. The tin-eared dialogue sounds so familiar, you can sometimes quote it before the characters even open their mouths. This movie wasn't written, it was assembled from bits and pieces of different similar movies that have worked with audiences in the past. The end result is a soulless commercial product.

Before I go into too much detail, let's focus on the positives first. For one thing, the movie's not in 3D. Every time a big budget summer release resists the urge to throw in some half-assed 3D just to get a few more bucks slapped on the ticket price, I cheer. What else?...Well, as generic as the characters are, there is some actual attempt to develop them. That's always a plus. And hey, the movie may be uninspired, and the result of corporate greed and massive audience pandering, but it's not terrible. Uninspired, but not terrible. When I'm stuck watching a movie like Battleship, I try my hardest to look at the positives. The fact that I was considering "it could be worse" a positive shows you that I was fighting a losing battle with the film playing up on the screen.

The plot: In 2006, scientists discover a planet similar to our own that could sustain life, and name it Planet G. NASA begins attempting to communicate with the planet, to see if there is intelligent life. One particular scientist, named Cal (Hamish Linklater), offers the ominous warning that "If intelligent life does come here, it's going to be like Columbus discovering America, only we're the Indians". Naturally, no one listens to him. Cal is the type of scientist usually played by Jeff Goldblum - He's sarcastic, too smart for his own good, and a bit neurotic. He exists to be ignored by military and government heads, until it is too late. He also will become an accidental hero by the end of the movie. We know these things the moment we lay eyes on him, because we've seen his character type before. The movie does not disappoint, nor does it deviate from its expected character arc.

It takes six years for the aliens inhabiting Planet G to arrive on Earth. They happen to arrive right in the middle of a Naval war game, and touch down in the middle of it all. Our hero is Lieutenant Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch from John Carter). He too is immediately familiar to us. In his prologue sequence, we see him as a hopeless loser living on the couch of his Naval Commander brother, Stone (Alexander Skarsgard). Alex gets an ultimatum - Join the Navy too and change his ways, or live on the streets. Since joining the Navy, Alex has managed to net himself a sexy girlfriend named Sam (model-turned-actress Brooklyn Decker). He's also developed a reputation for being reckless and a loose cannon who doesn't follow orders. This naturally puts him at odds with Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson), who sees potential in Alex, if only he wasn't such a screw up, and followed orders. Much like his role in March's Wrath of the Titans, this role pretty much exists so Neeson can pick up a pay check just for showing up, and he treats it as such. He serves no role or purpose in the film, other than the fact that he happens to be the father of Alex's girlfriend.

So, the alien ships land in the middle of the war games, and immediately create a barrier of energy around some of the ships, trapping them within with no way out. One of those ships is the one under the command of Alex, where he will be forced to be a leader for the first time in his life. He has to rally his crew, and fight back against the aliens. Funny thing about the ships those aliens arrive on. When they first touch down, they're near-invincible to fire from the Navy ships. Yet, when the time comes for Alex to step up and become a leader, they magically become highly vulnerable to his cannons. Call it luck, or lazy screenwriting. There are no wrong answers here. Meanwhile, the aliens clank about in metal armor suits that make them look like Master Chief from the Halo video games a little bit, and begin their invasion campaign, which seems to be centered around Hawaii and Hong Kong for some reason. Why do the aliens leave their sometimes-invincible and sometimes-not ships? So that we can get a subplot where Alex's girlfriend, a wounded Army soldier (played by real life former soldier Gregory D. Gadson), and Cal can stop their plans.

A movie like Battleship must have felt like a paid holiday for the screenwriting team of Erich and Jon Hoeber. All they had to do was plug in characters and plot elements from different movies. There is nothing that surprises here, and nothing that impresses. Even the effects, while competently done, seem familiar. There's just nothing in this movie that we haven't seen before. Everything's safe, been tested for maximum audience-pleasing effect, and smells of corporate influence. This isn't a movie, so much a product. It's been designed to sell tickets its opening weekend, sell tie-in games, and sell fast food promotions. I probably wouldn't mind so much if it looked like some sort of thought went into the plot or the dialogue, but I certainly couldn't pick up on anything. To make it even easier for consumers, it's been dumbed down.

It seems like every summer we get a movie like Battleship, where it's blatantly obvious the studio was thinking with its wallet, instead of its head. Sure, you could argue that about a lot of movies, but most of them usually make some kind of effort to hide the fact. I have no doubt that this movie will find an audience over the summer. I also have no doubt that most of that audience will prefer The Avengers to this.

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