User reviews

OK, first of all, yes, this movie has more holes than the surface of the moon. Some of the plot points, tactics, technical gaffes, etc. etc. etc. are so bad and stupid as the be insulting. Seriously, if you are up on your military technology at all it's best to go to this movie seriously drunk so that you won't care about the dumbness.

That said, it's actually a pretty fun movie. And, yes, I think it's better than Battle Los Angeles or even the latest Transformers. Why? Because this movie didn't make the same critical mistakes of trying to have Acting in the damn film. Nothing slows down a good action flick like a damn love story in the background, or the hero dealing with his feelings or, worse still, putting brats in the line of fire. Battleship had none of that - just a bunch of thick-headed do- gooders doing what they do best and not really learning a whole lot about anything, including themselves, in the process.

Another thing I like is that there is an appreciation for the warships and the people who serve on them. The timing of the ACDC music for the going-into-battle scene is perfectly done. You can't help but smile.

The alien technology is actually pretty imaginative and the animation is good. It's not as over- the-top as Battle LA - where there was so much going on you get overwhelmed. But when the aliens want something blowed up, they do so with conviction. Mind you, some of the technical deficiencies of the alien technology will leave you wondering how these creatures managed to cross a galaxy. But try not to worry about that - the writers sure didn't.

The cast is OK. Neeson is decent as the admiral or whatever, and even Rihanna does an acceptable job. We're not talking about "Apocalypse Now" kinds of performances, but it wasn't horrible either. It was at least semi-believable.

Look, this ain't no "Bedford Incident". But it's a pretty decent way to kill a couple hours and snarf down some popcorn. All the folks griping about the technical problems - well, it's all true - but who cares? This movie doesn't pretend to be realistic. Hell, in the credits it's "Based on the game by Hasbro," so go in prepared and enjoy.

5.8/10 ? Come on it's not that bad. If you like war, sci fi, alien attacking movies and warships, you 'll find this movie pretty decent. Ok yes, it has a lot of unrealistic things and many plot holes, but beside these it's pretty fun and enjjoyable.

On a certain level, there's no way I can claim that Battleship is a good movie in any conventional sense. The plot is incredulous and the script couldn't be riddled with more holes if you unloaded a shotgun at it. 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. And I certainly don't remember any aliens in the game I had.

But somehow, despite it all, Battleship stays afloat. There's a certain energy and enthusiasm to the film that is infectious, even via the big screen. The story may not make a whole lot of sense, but it is a lot of fun. 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.

Certainly, the cast seems to be having a lot of fun on screen. Taylor Kitsch, who stars as Lt. 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. Alexander Skarsgard plays Alex's older brother and mentor, a Navy Captain to whom Alex feels he has been a shallow disappointment. 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. The only real weak spot in the cast is singer Rihanna, making her big screen debut and looking like it. One can only hope that if Rihanna pursues further acting roles, she'll improve…a lot.

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. 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 dialog isn't Oscar-worthy, but is sometimes quite witty.

In the end, Battleship is a prototypical summer actioner. 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. 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.

I don't care what the hatters think. To me a movie is supposed to entertain you. This movie for me is very entertaining. Is it the best movie ever made...not by a long shot but it has what it takes to keep you paying attention. It was a fun movie to watch and I actually find myself watching it everything it's on. It is on my same list as Armageddon, Deep Impact, Independence Day and Dawn of the Dead.... Just pure entertainment. And what is even more admirable about this movie is that it used actually military as extras and wounded warriors as extras as well. Any movie that honors our veterans and includes them is definitely a movie that I will love. SO THERE! HA!

Heaven help me! I liked this movie, now I am going to be one of the few who did. As you can see from the other reviews a lot of people didn't like this movie, so why did I?

1. I came in with low expectations - I was expecting something horrible, boring, long and pointless, but despite myself I liked it, I laughed at the jokes, I connected with the actors (yes, Rihanna too), I was excited by the action and while clichés the plot held my interest

2. The actors did a good job with what they were given - Taylor Kitsch did a good job, Rihanna wasn't that bad, I dare say good, in her role. She was there, she didn't try to chew the scenery, she did her job as an actor/secondary character and it didn't bother me. I give her kudos

3. lost in translation? - you try to make a game into a movie and you want to put parts of them game in it? Not easy, a little cheesy? Of course, but fun? Yes, fun, enjoyable, and in the end it was a part of the story that wasn't as forced as it could have been.

So in conclusion, "Battleship" is a fun, corny, typical summer movie that I like but as you see a lot of people didn't. I think it is a guilty pleasure, something to be enjoyed by the few but annoyed by the rest. In the end I can only suggest this - go in with low expectations, expect a little over the top patriotism like in "Act of Valor" ( but not so heavy), and don't think about it. The movie is not without its flaws or questionable logic, but as it was said so well in another movie - "I suggest you don't think about it and just enjoy the ride"

How this movie needed to be based upon any game I have no idea, all I can say about it is that my wife and I sat back, decided to ignore the obvious impossibilities and enjoy the movie. Doing that it was a fun time with my wife, however as a Science Fiction writer myself I still cringed more than I every want to admit.

What I will say in critic is something that Asimov and Clarke both agreed upon. "Never ask your reader to disbelieve more than one thing." Whomever wrote this screenplay really badly ignored that warning. Still in all it was a heck of a lot better than anything that the SciFry channel has ever put out.

I'm not sure why everyone is complaining about this movie. It's an action movie - not a deep social commentary or a romantic comedy.

Yeah. It had plenty of implausibilities but so what. Every movie has them.

It was well made, hero's and bad guys who had just enough weapons to be dangerous but not dangerous enough to secure the environment.

But again. This is a feel good, Cowboys & Indians movie.

Well I enjoyed it a lot and I'm kind of hard to please. It simply was not as bad as everyone says it is.

I liked the choice of actors even the two from Friday Night Lights.

The guy who played the injured sailor was pretty funny.

And what's a movie without your resident geek. Check.

Frankly, I like this movie. It has balanced in story and actions, unlike the all actions but no story development in all three of the Transformers movies. Taylor Kitsch is more in character in this movie than he ever was in John Carter. Alexander Skarsgard is what a brother would be to his little brother and Rihanna is pretty damn good with her first acting gig. Overall, average actings from all the casts.

The highlights of the movie is not the special effects but the 'tactical art of navy war' skills that the crews of the battleship is showcasing. After watching this movie, I've learned that 'old things' are never meant to be forgotten...

There are 3 hugely anticipated block-busters this year and Battleship was the first one to be released. I had expectations of watching this at that cinema a few times and getting it on blue ray - this is my type of movie!; or at least that was the expectation. With such great promotional footage and Liam Neeson heading the cast, it had to be great. In reality, Neeson has almost a bit part (in fact you see most of it in the promotional adverts), clearly there to increase sales of the movie; with the bulk of the 'acting' coming from Taylor Kitsch.

A ludicrous start with Kitsch playing a 27 year loser who, on the recommendation of his brother (Alexander Scarsgard) joins the Navy, suddenly to become at Lt Cdr - The script is clearly written by someone with no military knowledge or experience and that the actions, demeanour and interaction with all that are supposed to be military personnel, is a non sense. It makes Top Gun look believable! However, it gets worse;with aliens that have made there way to earth with great looking craft,that impressively rise from the ocean (great CGG) - you see it on the commercials for the movie, the only weapon they possess are melee type Armour - pretty ridiculous

really and by this point the movie has lost any form of credibility. The outcome is obvious from the first few minutes and I certainly wouldn't go back for a repeat viewing. It's still probably worth a watch if you can't resist, but don't buy any pop corn; there's enough corn in this movie!

A 6-star movie but I gave one additional for fun factor. It has battleships, aliens, explosions and cheesy effects. What can ask for more to spend a saturday night?

I went to see this film with my lady and I must say, the film looks extremely impressive, by that i'm referring to the visuals. Incredible visual effects and the aliens in this film look very terrifying, coupled with the music, but that's just it for this film.

It felt very rushed towards the end, but maybe that's just me, but i wasn't happy with the abrupt ending. Characters of this film where very flat, i guess blame the writers. One thing I loved was Rihanna's performance in this film, her very first feature and she well looked like a seasoned actor. The rest of the characters where just mehh. Liam Neesen was Liam Neesen, bad ass as always but he simply didn't appear enough, But non the less all the characters carried the film through.

The aliens are super dumb, sorry to say but they are. How the hack do they have such awesome technology beats me. They looked pretty awesome though, but they don seem intelligent enough. The plot was pretty average, "aliens wanna kill us, lets kill them first" kinda thing, that was it really. Its good that there where moments when i thought its over for earth, but yeah, you know the deal. If you liked the Transformers series, I believe you'll like this film cause the visual effects are AMAZING! Life Like.

Go see this film in the theater, its a real visual treat. But you can still catch the Blu-Ray when it comes out.

At once unlikely and overly ponderous, it is a good exercise in showing the humans vs aliens war showing a section of the U.S. Navy. This time the invading ETs are a sort of human like plus water Transformers. In the end the story ends up like a sci-fi action with plenty of decent actors (aside from Rihanna lent to the movies industry for the first time). Director Peter Berg (Hancock, Friday Night Lights) pumps the volume on clashing military stuff. At a time the story gets risible but on the other hand no one could have expected more from such non original and one dimensional characters. What certainly deserves the ticket price is this blend of great special effects, apart from that a barely decent flick.

Sitting in the theatre last night, a line from an old Tool song was rattling around in my brain. "One great big, festering, neon distraction" was used by the band to describe the state of California, but the description couldn't be more apt for Peter Berg's BATTLESHIP. A deafening, blue and orange military recruitment tool, the film can't even sustain its laughably simple premise, and attempts to promote a message so unappealing to its target audience I was left questioning why it even exists. Story is the least important element here, so lets just say that in between all the sweeping helicopter shots and blinding lens flare, an international Naval war games exercise is interrupted by alien invaders, and it's up to reckless officer Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) to save the day. Kitsch delivers solid character work early on, but soon gets lost in the cacophony of bangs and seizure-inducing editing which leaves little room for the human story. Inexplicably added to the mix are pop star Rihanna, seemingly here for no other reason than, well, she's Rihanna, and Liam Neeson collecting his paycheck for around 10 minutes of screen time. But, as I said, we're not here for the story, rather the spectacular action and special effects right? The bad news is that when the aliens finally show up, BATTLESHIP's pace strangely slows to a crawl (no doubt due to the limited options offered by the source material), and all potential excitement and interest evaporates. Director Berg forces the idea of teamwork down the audience's throats (Japan and the US fighting together in Hawaii? Wonders never cease), and doesn't even try to disguise his recruitment agenda. Indeed, the film is little more than a hyperkinetic music video (oh, that's why Rihanna is here) designed to lure impressionable youth into signing up so they too can fight the 'alien invaders'. Herein lies the problem however: young people today almost definitely don't play Battleship. Basing a tentpole film on a board game seemed like a daft idea from the outset, but recent cinema history has seen a theme park ride turned into a critically and financially successful franchise, so precedent is there in a way. Unfortunately for Universal, even those of us who grew up in a pre-internet/Xbox Live world remember Battleship as a desperately boring endeavour, so how can it be expected to compete in today's short attention-span culture? The strange metaphor that Berg attempts to craft in the film's third act, suggesting that we need to remember and re-appraise the past, just won't fly with 21st century teens bred in our disposable, constantly updating world of technological wonder. BATTLESHIP's strange juxtaposition of bombastic special effects framing ancient board game mechanics simply doesn't sit right, and it's hard to imagine the teen audience, so crucial for success at the summer box-office, tearing themselves away from the latest CALL OF DUTY to embrace the turn-based 'excitement' of this ridiculous film. No amount of explosions can salvage a limp and underwritten movie, and BATTLESHIP, not entirely unexpectedly, is torpedoed by its own outdated inspiration.

The casting of this film was awful, Taylor Kitch I did not mind in his previous John Carter, but he did not seem the same in this, Alexander Skarsgård played his half brother who looked absolutely nothing like him, if they made a big budget only fools and horses, here are Del-boy and Rodney...The film has some great effects but I did not like any of the macho Navy seals and the love story was dull with no chemistry between them..I think I wanted the Aliens to win about half way through to I could go home. The Special effects are good and it has some enjoyable moments but they are few and far between..Give me Transformers any day of the week, a lot better then this drivel..One good thing, Rhianna was good in it, hope to see more of her in movies, best thing in it by a mile..If your still single love, look me up ;-) otherall..A generous 2 out of 10 because the special effects where great, pity about the actors and the story, but at least America saved the world again..Yawn