Battleship

No doubt when people heard they were coming out with a movie based on the board game battleship there were a lot of eye rolls and heavy sighs.  Director Peter Berg of Friday Night Lights fame and the writing team of Jon and Erich Hoeber, who also wrote the Bruce Willis movie Red, heard the heavy sighs and decided to roll with it.  If people are already going into this movie thinking it is going to be ridiculous then why not just go full tilt.  Battleship is an overly computer generated action movie that follows every cliché in the genre, and the only thing that makes the movie enjoyable is just how ridiculous the movie becomes.

The movie feels a lot like Transformers and in a lot of respects it is, aliens coming down to earth with a plan to destroy it.  Actually I think once the aliens landed we were the ones who fired first, but that is not the point.  Where Michael Bay and Peter Berg differ is Bay took his action movies much more seriously.  Berg has seen a summer blockbuster before and knows that the demand for action is much higher than the demand for story.  So he makes the premise completely ridiculous and decides to not take the movie based on a 60's board game too seriously.

The movie opens on Lieutenant Alex Hopper played by Tim Riggins.  With no real direction in his life his brother played by Alexander Skarsgard from True Blood, forces him to join the navy under his command.  And I kid you not almost as soon as Skarsgard delivers the line "Do you think this is a game?" the title card for the movie flashes on the screen.  I have to believe they did that intentionally to set the tone for just how ridiculous the movie was going to be.  Because if they didn't, then really, just wow.  With a rocking soundtrack playing in the background that is just one of the many laughable moments of the movie, and I would love to give them away, but doing that would be like telling you the punch line to a joke before giving you the set-up.  Just know that during some of these moments the entire audience let out a bellowing moan, they are just that bad.  Thankfully no one in the movie says anything to the effect of "You sunk my battleship," but as soon as the reference to the grid board comes into play the movie becomes something so awful it just loops right back around to being awesome.

That being said it does take a while to get there.  The first half of the movie drags.  It may even be more than half the movie, it really is just that difficult to tell how long and how far the movie drags.  There are a lot of clichés the writing team need to set up first and the Hoeber brothers take their time getting to the point.  They always have a tough time getting all the information out in the first act like in their previous films Whiteout and Red.  But this then lets the duo put all the best action sequences and comedy at the end.  It wasn't till the action picked up that they seem to excel with pacing and finding the correct dialogue to fit the scene.

Since the movie was so hoke not much was demanded from the actors, which is important because none of the main actors have too much to offer.  You may be saying to yourself, but Liam Neeson is starring in the movie he is not really there.  While his name may be on all the advertising, really he is just there to collect a paycheck, he gets left out of most of the action as the commanding officer.  Most of the heavy lifting is done by Taylor Kitsch who some of you may remember, or most likely remember hearing about from the recent bomb John Carter.  It makes sense that Berg would go back to cast one of his biggest actors in his critically acclaimed television show, but in Friday Night Lights he was asked to be soft spoken off the field, and intense on it.  That soft spoken nature, which was captured well in the series, does not translate when you are asked to be the lead star in an action movie.  Rihanna also makes her feature film debut and while I went in wanting to make fun of her, she does fine in the movie as the spunky private with attitude.  Brooklyn Decker is always a great choice as eye candy, and she even gets her own storyline to stop the alien invasion.  All the actors do exactly what is expected from them and deliver all their lines with a smile on their face, everyone is in on the joke.

Unless you are a glutton for punishment, you probably shouldn't be paying the exorbitant ticket prices to see this movie.  The only relief to the movie is all the action doesn't come flying at you as they chose not to put the movie in 3-D although the visuals to the movie would certainly justify it.  A lot of the people walked out of the theater with a look of disgust on their face.  But I had a huge smile on mine.  The movie is laughably bad, and I can't remember a major blockbuster recently released like this. I loved this movie, but could see why people would hate it if they had expected something more.  I suppose they will have to wait for the theatrical release of Crossfire, because if it’s anything like the commercials, that movie would be epic. C+

The Wrath of the Titans

The sequel to the 2010 version of Clash of the Titans is coming out this weekend. Many of you may be wondering, wait didn't that movie suck? Why are they making a sequel? The answer being that while domestically the movie made a little bit more than the budget of the film, around the world the movie made bank. What are you going to do people in Eurasia love action movies. So studio heads fixed all the problems of the first one such as not originally filming it in 3-D, not nearly enough fight scenes, and any semblance of story or accurate portrayal of Greek mythology. What Wrath of the Titans lacks in story it makes up for in visual entertainment and that just may be enough to keep people entertained.

Some of the key actors returned to the movie, notably Sam Worthington as the always straining Perseus, and Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes as the divine ZZ top brothers. Many of the roles changed to fit the movies needs, from Andromeda to the director. Andromeda has changed from a lady in waiting to a warrior queen, so it appears they changed the actress to fit the new character and Rosamund Pike does a fine job in the role. Without question though the biggest change is in director as Jonathan Liebesman takes over the helm. With movies like Battle Los Angeles to his credit it is clear the studio knew the direction they wanted the project to take. And with a stable of new writers the team gave the studio what they wanted.

What they wanted was better visual effects and that is what they got. Filmed in 3-D, the visuals are much improved over the 2010 version which converted the movie into 3-D after it was already finished. Everything pops on the screen which is good because the script sizzles out almost immediately. Any semblance of story that is created is used merely to explain how to get to the next fight scene. And even then not all the fights are fully explained, such as a fight with a minotaur who shows up out of nowhere, and leaves before anyone else sees what happened. No doubt the writers chose to use a game of connect-the-dots to storyboard their movie, and with such little space on their single sheet of paper there was even less room for dialogue. The movie's dialogue can be summarized into three lines: "You betrayed me," "The Gods are losing their power," and, oh I don't know a lot of screaming maybe. With all that time saved from by not talking I'm sure the computer animators were able to create an extra monster for Perseus to face.

Lacking in the movie is comic relief, and any attempt by the actors to be funny is quickly stymied. Toby Kebbell is introduced as the initial comic relief but once he enters his first battle he quickly gets captured and after that is only there to fight. Then after the next series of battles our heroes meet Bill Nighy, who is always good for laugh or two. Indeed he does inject the movie with some much needed laughs, but I think once they realize what is going on they quickly dispatch of the character. Good catch boys, that was a close one.

With so little story to tell, and much of the screen time going to fight scenes, the movie doesn't make it past 100 minutes. Which may explain why despite the stories told of how difficult the labyrinth to Tartarus is to navigate, they maybe spend 10 minutes in the maze before they reach their destination. All the action moves quickly, and with no doubt by design. Before you realize what you saw the movie is over and at the very least you can walk out saying well it was better than the first one.

Wrath of the Titans can at the very least say that it was better than the first one. The crew knew what their audience wanted and refused to be bogged down by things like story and dialogue. There is plenty of action to enjoy and to its credit the movie looks good. Just try to ignore what all your other senses are trying to tell you and take it all in. D+