Battleship

I'm always a little leery when the beginning credits of a movie mention Hasbro. I can understand making a movie based on a video game, but regular games and toys? It's only a matter of time until we see Chutes and Ladders on the big screen. I know I say "I wasn't expecting much" far too often on my reviews, but that was the case here again.

Flying Droidekas

Battleship is about an international navy competition that takes place in Hawaii. During routine exercises, they come across alien space ships in the ocean that end up attacking them and destroying much of their fleet. The lead character is an undisciplined slacker who finally has an opportunity to develop his leadership skills and save the world from destruction.

There are many inconsistencies, plot holes, and other problems with this movie that leave you scratching your head. Aliens ships the size of sky scrapers splashing in and out of the water 100 yards away from a small boat don't even make waves enough to rock the boat?

The scene I had the hardest time with was when a handful of surviving sailors decide to take the USS Missouri out to sea to continue fighting the aliens. I have the greatest respect for WW2 vets, but it made my stomach turn when there just happened to be several old veterans hanging out at the ship who were familiar with the vessel and ready to take it into battle.

In a short video montage accompanied by AC/DC's Thunder, a dozen soldiers quickly fix up and take the 70 year old decommissioned ship out to battle against superior alien technology that previously took out their modern fleet. It kind of reminded me of when Aragorn recruited the green ghost guys to defeat Sauron in Return of The King. I would not have been surprised if they also teamed up with the Black Pearl to help them fight against the alien invaders.

I give Battleship 6.1 stars for the following reasons:

1) They did a great job of product placement.
2) I no longer feel the need to see the newest Transformers movie anymore.
3) This movie teaches us that the elderly and handicapped can still save the day.

Young boys will probably still like Battleship, since it's a mixture of Top Gun, Battle Los Angeles, and Transformers and has great special effects. Maybe I'm just getting too old.