![]() Anyone who’s played Ticket to Ride with the Alvin & Dexter expansion knows that board games can be fun when you add aliens – and Peter Berg seems determined to prove that theory. What is surprising is how enjoyable parts of it are. It’s no surprise that a script based on a ship-sinking guessing game is a massive pile of hooey. “Who do I call to get you some humility?” Skarsgard replies, delivering one of the worst line readings since Pierce Brosnan in Taffin. “You gotta make a few calls for me,” whines selfish naval officer Alex Hopper (Kitsch) to his brother, Stone (Alexander Skarsgard), after being threatened with dismissal. It’s never a good sign when you struggle to hear a film’s terrible dialogue over loud explosions and your own mocking laughter. Watch Battleship online in the UK: Netflix UK / Apple TV (iTunes) / Prime Video (Buy/Rent) / Google Play / Sky Store / CHILI If you're okay with a movie that doesn't stimulate your brain and requires only that you go along for the fast-paced ride and enjoy the show, Battleship is surprisingly entertaining.Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna It's nowhere nearly as good as The Avengers, but as a very different type of film is still worth seeing if big-budget mayhem is your thing. In the end, Battleship is a prototypical summer actioner. The dialog isn't Oscar-worthy, but is sometimes quite witty. And while the movie is in a sense very violent-once the aliens arrive, things start to blow up at a rapid clip-there's nothing especially graphic or bloody. The plot isn't deep, but it does have some positive aspects, incorporating elements of personal redemption, self-empowerment, and self-sacrifice, all concepts that more movies would be well-advised to advance. One can only hope that if Rihanna pursues further acting roles, she'll improve a lot. The only real weak spot in the cast is singer Rihanna, making her big screen debut and looking like it. The gorgeous Brooklyn Decker does an adequate job as Alex's girlfriend, Samantha, whose father just happens to be the Admiral of the fleet, and played by the great Liam Neeson in a typically authoritative performance. Alexander Skarsgard plays Alex's older brother and mentor, a Navy Captain to whom Alex feels he has been a shallow disappointment. Alex Hopper, is an empathetic hero whose struggle to overcome his personal weaknesses is ultimately played out with the fate of the world at stake when he finds himself and the crew of his Navy destroyer in the wrong place at the wrong time-and smack in the middle of an amphibious alien invasion. Certainly, the cast seems to be having a lot of fun on screen. ![]() The extravagant special effects-merely par for the course in any modern would-be blockbuster-are one factor, but spectacular as the many explosions, gunfights, and various displays of pyrotechnics are, there's more to it than that, an overriding sense of fun that makes all the conventional weaknesses of the film meaningless. The story may not make a whole lot of sense, but it is a lot of fun. There's a certain energy and enthusiasm to the film that is infectious, even via the big screen. But somehow, despite it all, Battleship stays afloat. And I certainly don't remember any aliens in the game I had. ![]() Even the idea that the movie is based on Hasbro's classic board game of the same name is rather disingenuous: yes, there is a battleship involved in the action, almost all of which takes place at sea, but other than that any resemblance to the game we all grew up playing seems purely coincidental. The plot is incredulous and the script couldn't be riddled with more holes if you unloaded a shotgun at it. ![]() On a certain level, there's no way I can claim that Battleship is a good movie in any conventional sense.
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