Stunningly idiotic
What do you get when you take a ridiculous premise, terrible story, abysmal acting, clunky dialogue & mix it with wildly inaccurate depictions of the US Navy? Well you get 'Battleship' of course; a film that manages to challenge the widely held assertion that 'Pluto Nash' is the worst film of all time.
Putting aside the moronic concept of making a movie based on a board game, this film fails on so many levels you start to wonder if it’s on purpose. Are we being punk’d? Is this one of the greatest Dadaist pieces in history? Almost every single aspect of this Hollywood tire fire is a complete disaster. The acting... mother of God, what were the casting requirements here? One can find better presence and timing in softcore porn; what, was the cast of TruTv’s ‘World’s Dumbest’ not available? The story has enough plot holes to sink a... well, a Battleship. A formulaic, paint by numbers script that leaves no question as to the ultimate outcome or what vehicle would be used (you knew the Missouri would be utilized to some degree the second you first saw it at the beginning); middle school productions of ‘The Miracle Worker’ offer more in the way of intrigue. John Hughes once bragged about writing ‘Home Alone’ over a weekend; clearly we are down to about 45 minutes of turn around time, which apparently is just long enough to rip off the glory shots of about 37 other films (Hopper & Nagata climbing the stern is Jack & Rose almost frame for frame).
Alien invasions have turned into monotonous laugh fests with movies like this and the recent ‘Cowboys & Aliens’. A species that possesses the intellect to master interstellar space apparently isn’t smart enough to avoid a planet with an abundance of something that harms them (light). They also have the ability to destroy attacking ships, yet only do so when they are being fired upon. So, a race of aliens who intends on contacting their invasion force to destroy the planet also possesses the compassion to only fire in self defense? What pea brain came up with that? On that note, why is it so critical that they contact their home world anyway? Did they not bother to tell anybody back home where they were going? This is stupidity of the highest order.
The US Navy is portrayed in such a grossly incorrect fashion I marvel that the studio wasn’t sued. An unemployed, uneducated 26 year old with a felony burglary charge not only manages to receive a commission, but make Lt. after a short number of years? Bullhonkey. You would have a difficult time even enlisting with those credentials and your only officer candidacy would be with Somali pirates. This single screamingly glaring error makes the rest of the film nearly unwatchable, but the crack team at Hoeber, Hoeber & Berg isn’t finished until every half witted, uninformed stereotype about naval service is displayed for the gaggle of idiots this film is evidently intended for. Serving men are portrayed as mindless twits devoid of any ability to do their job until the aforementioned magical officer appears to take command in another bit of cinematic nonsense that not only manages to be completely inaccurate, but directly and unabashedly rips off another film (‘Star Trek’). To show career officers and enlisted men as incompetent stooges until the rougeish hero shows up to save the day is insulting to all men & women who are serving or have served in the past.
We are also treated to a head scratchingly useless scene in a military rehabilitation center that introduces an ancillary character played by a real life Army Colonel by the name of Gregory Gadson. I feel desperately sorry for this solider; not because of his injury which he has been able to overcome with great success, but because he was probably very excited to be in a movie and not told it would be the cinematic equivalent of a septic backup. Before we meet the Colonel however we are treated to an uncomfortable montage of wounded soldiers; as if the rest of the military portrayal isn’t bad enough, we are dealt a glory pass of amputees. A scene in a civil war battlefield hospital would be a logical place for such a shot; here it’s just WTF. But hey, at least he gets to punch out the teeth of an alien so we can watch his teeth fly in an inconceivably assinine little bit of animation that makes Bugs Bunny cartoons look like ‘Avatar’.
The single good point in this two hour comedy is the sequence involving the USS Missouri. The images of such a great ship being readied for sea in defense of our people by veteran crew members is so powerful I nearly wept. Despite the real life technical impossibilities of such an overhaul (instant steam! just enough fuel oil!), it was still an amazing concept. Unfortunately, when you look back at it you realize it is just another disappointing miss (get it? miss?). Such a poignant scene is wasted in a horribly designed package that does more to insult the veterans they portray then honor them. Like a Faberge egg in an Easter basket filled with wet turds, the entire sequence ultimately seems out of place & is robbed of its emotion. They manage to get the ship to sea which is only possible since there are munitions onboard because, duh, the military always leaves active shells in publicly accessible structures. They were probably stored next to the crane machine that some *beep* found necessary to destroy in slow motion (four quarters and not one stuffed Spongebob; screw you!). The CG Missouri is laughably bad & performs incredulous maneuvers that even someone with no maritime knowledge would look at and say “come on, really”? The anchor drop is the absolute worst of all; even ‘Speed 2’ demonstrates that an anchor can’t stop a moving ship. That’s right sportsfans, ‘Speed 2’ has a leg up on ‘Battleship’ in the technical correctness department. If that doesn’t make you laugh out loud, nothing will.
I watched this via. my cable system’s On Demand, so I cant say I deserve my money back, but I feel I am due financial recompense regardless… this film was just that bad. No talent, no thought, no logic, just fire this thing at that thing and blow some crap up. I want my time back; time to do things I enjoy more than this film, like reading, watching the game or performing rectal inspections on diseased elephants. Its bad enough this film got made, its worse that people actually went to see it. The fact that there are people on here that defend it (as a ‘popcorn movie’ or otherwise) destroys my faith in mankind.
“How about E4 Mr. Berg?”
“You sunk my career!”