TOP 10 BOX OFFICE (2)

THE BATTELESHIP

A fleet of ships is forced to do battle with an armada of unknown origins in order to discover and thwart their destructive goals. No one was expecting Hollywood would so be s*** out of ideas and turn a board game into a movie but in the end we have BATTLESHIP, a movie based on the classic board game involving taking down your enemy's entire fleet through luck and grid reference. But this one has aliens which were strangely absent in the original source material.

Ridiculous as it sounds on paper, BATTLESHIP was made and here we have a passable summer time killer.

The special effects in the movie are impressive; I watched a regular screening so I can't say much for the 3D. The combat between Earth's naval ships and the alien machines was done well though it wasn't as tense as one could hope for. They're just nice to LOOK at; there's no sense of urgency or dread when the guns are loaded or when the enemy ships arm their missiles. The editing in the action scenes was a bit choppy but thankfully this does little to hinder the fact that they're nice to look at.

The movie wasn't advertised as having a thought provoking story or anything serious; the crew behind the movie knew that they made it to be nothing more than a popcorn movie that doesn't take itself seriously which is why unlike CLASH OF THE TITANS the special effects don't seem to be a hindrance to the simple story. Though I just wish someone took the time to improve the alien design which looked like it was cheaply ripped off from a video game.

But the story itself isn't even worth mentioning; sure, it's a simple alien invasion but that's about all it is, there's nothing more to it. There's no character development, it's extremely predictable and it seems amateurish. There were some good laughs here and there and bits of what could've been character development but never are they expanded. Even for a simple alien invasion movie the dialogue the characters said seemed forced; never do they connect to the audience in some way so when someone goes down or when someone's in danger, you don't feel anything. The writers tried to make things sound more intelligent than they have to and look at the end result; you have a bunch of flat characters spouting unnecessary profound crap.

The script is just bad; it looks like it was written by a kid who thought that the "cool stuff" (video game looking aliens, cheesy dialogue meant to sound deep, witty one-liners, etc.) should be added into the movie and that's why those were there. Cheap and cheesy dialogue makes the already flat cast of characters even more uninteresting; try not to groan while watching any of the "romantic" scenes or the obligatory patriotic scenes as seen in any movie made involving the military.

I'll admit, I was expecting BATTLESHIP to be total crap but I'm slightly thankful it didn't turn out to be the complete waste of money and time I was expecting but that isn't saying much. All the movie turned out to be was a popcorn movie that couldn't even entertain me all through out its run time. In the end, BATTLESHIP is a corny and clichéd movie (to describe it this way is being lenient) that relies on action sequences to draw in an audience. This movie didn't really feel like an alien invasion summer flick, it felt more like a 90 minute ad for a board game.