Battleship

The only thing I wanted out of this overblown, idiotic waste of celluloid (and waste of space on a hard drive for the digital prints) was for star Liam Neeson to bellow, "We sank their battleship!" These guys couldn't even get that right! What's the point of making a movie based on the game Battleship if you aren't going to have that legendary line uttered? Why would Liam Neeson do this movie without being promised that he could say it?

Taylor Kitsch (he of the massive 2012 bomb John Carter, who might be trying to fire his agent as we speak) stars as Alex Hopper - a down and out, unemployed slob of a dude with no sense of responsibility and dedication who ends up joining the Navy (which might happen in real life to Kitsch if he doesn't fire his agent). Of course, the hottest woman on the planet, Sam Shane (Brooklyn Decker), happens to be the daughter of his commanding officer, Admiral Shane (Neeson), and she's madly in love with the dude (because gorgeous, model-looking women always fall for the poor, slobby, unemployed dude with a criminal record).

During a massive naval conference featuring military from all around the globe, aliens decide it is time to invade Earth, destroy Hong Kong and set up some strange protective shield over Hawaii and much of the ocean surrounding it.

Now, only the limited ships and subs in the water for some war games are what stand between us and complete alien global domination (and, as Hopper is one of those people, we could all be screwed).

Will Hopper, Shane and their fellow sailors be able to stop the aliens?

Of course, you can't blame Kitsch for the mediocrity and disaster that is Battleship. That lies at the feet of director Peter Berg and the writing team of Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber (why did Erich steal that "H" from Jon?). There seems to be absolutely no intention of telling a story. While they throw in some subplots designed to be human stories to add some depth to the characters, nothing in Battleship is about real emotion nor humanity. This is about blowing stuff up in the most unoriginal way.

Battleship is full of clichéd stories, overly simplistic dialogue and more phony machismo than those moments when Ryan Seacrest and Simon Cowell used to fight on American Idol. However, Battleship maintains a certain level of passability for about an hour until it completely spirals out of control becoming sillier and more implausible by the moment, no matter how much it tries to feel patriotic and respectful of the military. All of that feels tossed in for cheap appeal to the audience, instead honoring these heroes.

The only way Battleship succeeds is in those moments when the movie tries to tip its hat to the board game that gave birth to it. The explosive devices used by the aliens look like the pegs you use in the game, which I thought was perfect, and you have to giggle when the naval officers start to track the aliens as if playing the game.

Battleship is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, action and destruction, and for language.