Battleship (2012)

Film review #635

Director: Aldo Iuliano

SYNOPSIS: During a military training exercise between U.S. and Japanese naval forces, an alien object crashes to Earth which is the precursor to an invasion. Setting up an energy field that cuts off all contact, the remaining ships must work together to prevent the aliens from calling for reinforcements…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Battleship is a 2012 sci-fi film, and yes, it is based on the classic Hasbro game. Alex Hopper, a down and out loser is forced into the navy by his brother. Some years later, the joint military training exercise between the Japanese and U.S. Navy is interrupted by an alien object falling to Earth. Damaged in the fall, it aims to take control of a nearby satellite array to call it’s home planet for reinforcements, unless they are stopped. After colossal losses, Alex is left in command as all communications are cut, and the survivors are left to work together to stop the alien threat. The premise sounds simple enough, although adding in an alien threat to the traditional Battleship game is an odd twist. It should be simple though: battleship is one of the most simple games to pick up and play. Here’s where the film makes its big miss: it is unnecessarily complicated in all aspects. The runtime is far too long (just over two hours), there’s too many things happening at once, the character’s (some of them anyway) attempt to have a story arc, but are often buried beneath everything that is going on. The part of the film which I suppose is meant to resemble the actual game is set up in such a complicated manner so that each side can’t see the other, that I couldn’t for the life of me explain how it was all working, and just accepted they were playing real-life battleships. Once this scene is over, it just moves on to the next set piece, and repeat ad nauseum until the film is over. There’s no real sense of flow to everything that is happening, and just feels like a bunch of ideas thrown together.

There’s some attempt to try and make a hero of the main character Hopper, who must quickly grow up when he becomes the most senior commanding officer on the ship. However, this never really materialises in any substantial way. The romance element is also rather shallow, as Alex and his love interest Sam barely interact with each other during the movie, only to set up a problem at the beginning, and resolve it at the end. Rihanna takes a small role where she does very little other than shout a few words to verbalise what is going on, so her appearance isn’t too distracting (at least it’s not as forced as in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets). There’s not much point in delving into the intricacies of the film though, as everything is quickly swept away when the big alien ships and battleships start shooting and blowing each other up. Honestly, this is where the film starts to redeem itself, as you’ll quickly forget about all the pointless diversions and attempts at a story as things start to kick off. The effects are fairly decent, and the alien ship designs are pretty cool too. When you switch off from all the extraneous nonsense, the film is entertaining enough for a summer film, but the question remains just how should should you need to detach yourself from logic and rational thought to enjoy something? Battleship certainly pushes the boat out in attempting to see just how much it can get away with without revealing the shaky foundations lurking below the surface.