Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) and Cora Raikes (Rihanna) are not about to let aliens sink their battleship
BATTLESHIP (Peter Berg, 2012)
Opens Friday, May 18
www.battleshipmovie.com
Whoever first said that you can’t put a square peg in a round hole was clearly not a Hollywood producer. In the big-budget Battleship, writers Jon and Erich Hoeber (Red) and director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom) transform the old-fashioned, ultra-low-tech board game Battleship into a massive sci-fi action thriller that is pretty much as dumb as you would expect but not quite as stupid as you would hope. Which is not saying that it is not both dumb and stupid, but it will also unexpectedly grab you upon occasion. Taylor Kitsch stars as Alex Hopper, a young ne’er-do-well who is forced to join the Navy by his older brother, Commander Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård), after everything else in Alex’s life has gone wrong. Just as he’s about to be tossed out of the Navy as well, Alex — who has fallen in love with blonde physical therapist Samantha Shane (Brooklyn Decker), the stunningly beautiful daughter of the tough-as-nails Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson) — must suddenly turn into a leader as the Pacific Fleet comes under attack from what appears to be alien invaders. Taking multiple pages out of such disaster flicks as Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Day After Tomorrow, and the 1998 Godzilla, Berg has made an utterly predictable movie with inane dialogue, absurd subplots, cool explosions, and a booty-shaking soundtrack (by composer Steve Jablonsky, with guitar by Tom Morello along with an overdose of classic rock). The casting is often more interesting than the film itself, with Rihanna as Petty Officer Cora Raikes, Army veteran and double amputee Gregory D. Gadson as Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales, and Japanese star Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer) as Captain Nagata. As far as the film’s relationship to the board game goes, the alien bombs are shaped like Battleship pegs, and there is one scene in which a computerized numbered and lettered grid is used to try to track down the enemy. What’s next? Pong: The Movie? Actually, it looks like there are plans to turn Asteroids and Space Invaders into films. We kid you not. And as far as Battleship is concerned, we can’t even consider it sunk, as it has already grossed more than $200 million overseas. And if you sit through all of the credits, you’ll be rewarded by a bonus scene that just might make you think that a sequel is possible.