by Tehan Davis
Staff Writer
Battleship has been plagued by bad advertising with its trailers depicting a serious, dramatic, all out alien war movie with a cheap Hasbro tie-in to draw in audiences, but it is actually a hilarious, action-filled movie, based on the popular childhood game with the same name.
The film, directed by Peter Berg, begins with a company launching a giant satellite into space that is meant to send out communication signals to a planet similar to Earth.
The movie then cuts to Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), a drunk, self-destructing moron with “a lot of potential,” according to his brother.
After he is arrested for breaking into a gas station, his older brother, Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård), forces Alex to join the Navy.
The movie then cuts to Lieutenant Hopper of the USS John Paul Jones DDG-53 who is attending a co-operative training event with Japan’s navy in Hawaii.
An alien scouting party crashes just off the coast of Hawaii and puts up a force field around the island, blocking the entire Navy except for Lieutenant Hopper’s ship and two others.
It is then up to the three ships to destroy the aliens before the aliens are able to rebuild their communication relay that was destroyed in the crash and call in the rest of their invasion force.
One thing that you may have already figured out about Battleship is that this is not a movie to be taken seriously and the plot that unfolds is extremely entertaining.
Almost every scene has subtle humor, where viewers can’t believe how ridiculous the movie really is, and yet somehow it all makes sense.
In one scene, Captain Yugi Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) and Lieutenant Hopper bring up a flow chart, track the water displacements in the area and aim and shoot at pockets of displacements hoping to get a hit.
In other words, they play Battleship. As ridiculous as that scene seems, it works, and the audience has to wait to see if the attack is a hit or miss.
The acting is great because it seems like the actors realized how ridiculous the idea was and rolled with it.
Some scenes come off as plain silly, but not over the top, just enough to keep the audience entertained and ready for whatever ridiculous stunt they are about to pull.
The movie is not without faults.
Holes in the plot are ubiquitous, which mainly stem from the scenes showcasing the incompetent US government.
Also, these scenes come off as badly written rather than a humorous satire attempting to criticize the fact that the only thing our government can do is argue.
In conclusion, if you have no plans this weekend and you’ve already seen The Avengers and you’re relatively certain that Men in Black III is going to be horrible, then go see Battleship.