Saturday, April 14, 2012
Battleship (M)
The people over at Hasbro HQ will be sitting in their chairs
gloating over their latest money-spinner. As they evolve their interest in Hollywood
from making films out of games-turned-TV-shows up to just making films straight
from games, it seems to be working. But the buck stops there, with the premise
of their latest enterprise throwing too much in to fill such a vastly empty (plot)
hole.
The Transformers films
have enjoyed success because of the toys’ original longevity, which brought
along a TV show that developed the characters so they were loved or hated. With
boats it’s a bit harder to achieve that unless you inject characters into the mix,
but while the characters in this film are given time to develop there’s no
sense of connection. For either side, being that the bad guys are aliens.
Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is a no-hoper who meets his girl Samantha (Brooklyn Decker) drunk on his birthday. After breaking into a mini-mart to get her an unattainable chicken burrito, big brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgård) decides a life change in the Navy is what he needs. After working his way up the ranks, during an exercise undertaking with Japanese navy crew at sea both brothers find themselves up against alien battleships from Planet G fighting to invade Earth.
The film kicks into gear once the elements of the game come into play, and the focus on tactics is not lost on us as a slight wave of nostalgia hits those who were Battleship players. The action comes in thick but not fast, although with plenty of decent explosions to satisfy the target (male) audience. Otherwise the film has little to like.
Hopper fights a war with himself as he battles the enemy and shows weak character, proving quickly as someone you don’t want to sympathise with. In short, the guy is an idiot, and while Kitsch goes by what he’s given it’s a bad handling of the lead guy as an underdog from director Peter Berg (Hancock).
The subplot on shore involving Samantha ties in nicely enough but still has a weak execution. Decker (aka Mrs Andy Roddick) isn’t a major focus and also not overplayed, unlike singer Rihanna as fellow Navy officer Raikes in her debut acting role.
The film’s ultimate weakness is its screenplay; Erich and Jon Hoeber’s creation is terrible. While writing the well-received Red, they use this film to stab at US-Japan relations with racist innuendos and then attempt to laugh at themselves. Confusion about whether it wants to be comic leaves the whole 131 minutes as one big contradiction.
The premise of making deep-space communication had potential, but the whole outing proves pointless. The music used is painfully typical, and even the addition of Liam Neeson as Admiral Shane sadly doesn’t bring anything extra to the challenge of making the film viable.
Hasbro should stick to putting toys on shelves. There are better films for getting nostalgic about sinking ships.
Rating: 2/5
*Published in the Daily Liberal (Dubbo), Western Advocate (Bathurst), Parkes Champion Post and Midstate Observer (Orange) from Saturday 14/4/2012
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