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+

John Carter

Without the Jeddack’s would there be a Jedi, what would Charlton Heston have worn when crashing on The Planet of the Apes, would Kirk have gotten so much inter-galctic tail if it hadn’t been for this hero created 100 years ago. John Carter is thought to be the inspiration for that and so much more in the science fiction world, so it is understood that fans of the genre have been crying out for the movie to be made. And with the technology to create other worlds, nothing is holding the studios back from making this movie. The execution and hype surrounding Disney’s blockbuster John Carter may be too over powering to create a movie living up the expectation.

Disney gave every advantage it could to the movie, a huge budget a talented cast and a proven director but none of it seemed together as there was a lot of fizzle to the movie, but very little pop. Andrew Stanton made his live action debut, but he has already had so much success having previously worked for Pixar and directing Finding Nemo and Wall-E. He has proven that he knows how to create a compelling story and with so much CGI necessary with a movie like this you would figure he would be right at home with this project. He seems too bogged down in making sure everything fits that he pays less attention to making the characters compelling, so whether John Carter succeeds or not becomes inconsequential.

I wanted to like Taylor Kitsch, I really did. I loved him in "Friday Night Lights", so much like I was rooting for the Panther’s success I was rooting for him to do well in this lead role that could make or break the young star’s film career. He just doesn’t bring anything to the table. Come to think of it none of the live action actors stood out Dominic West from "The Wire" was plenty bland. Mark Strong as the shape shifting puppeteer on Mars and go to villain was only noteworthy when he wasn’t Mark Strong. The only actor who could keep my attention was Lynn Collins as the princess of Mars, but it wasn’t for any of her acting skill.

The most interesting characters were the Tharks and with a 250 million dollar budget and a mostly CGI created movie at least they have that going for them. William Defoe was the stand out character and leader of the alien species which made the movie watchable. They were the only characters which seemed to understand how the movie was supposed to turn out. While every other character played their role stiffly a combination of voice animation and computer generation helped at least one species play into the goofy tone that everyone should have been aiming for.

That should have been the tone to the movie, with production being done by Disney you would think they would be trying to appeal to a younger audience looking for a hero. But with a PG-13 rating I don’t know how many young kids will be able to see this movie. It seemed more important to those behind the camera to pay respect to the source material which inspired so many in the science fiction world from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to Avatar. So instead of getting either by trying to create this balance they get neither.

Maybe the problem is just how brilliant the source material is. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote this story 100 years ago, and right before he wrote arguably his most notable success Tarzan. This story though may have been the more important as it led to countless warriors chasing after princesses, fights in galaxies far away, and outlaw heroes fighting to save the world. But having seen these elements before they hardly feel as innovative as once before.

Perhaps the biggest problem to the story though is the pacing. The movie moves at a snail’s pace, and with so many different elements thrown into the mix there is a lot that needs to be wrapped up before we get to the climax of the film. The story continues to build upon itself with various villains and conflicts all needing resolved. It seems endless and draining and not all that entertaining.

I’m sure Disney would love to make this movie into a franchise. It seems like there is very little else to tell in the story and I don’t know how many out there would be crawling back for more. Fanboys who have been crying out for this movie to be made for eons may be better off watching the movies that were inspired by John Carter instead. D+