Battleship

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery … of Michael Bay

Battleship (2012)

Streaming; 2.5 / 5

Let’s be clear on this right up front: this is a silly movie. There’s no real acting going on here. There’s barely a plot here. There aren’t any believable characters here. Rhianna’s in it, and she’s not bad (which surprised me) but that’s not nearly enough. It’s a navy movie based on a boardgame in which “you sank my battleship!” is a well-known tagline. That’s not promising. Clue was a great movie based on a boardgame (it’s a cult classic now and one of my personal favorites), but it was successful because the game itself was already modeling movie tropes. But this movie? 

Well, I admit I was pleasantly surprised. The movie does an admirably creative job of incorporating the game’s three big bits: peg-like projectiles, just a few ships on each side, and an inability to see one another that necessitates both sides guessing at one another’s position. I’d like to call it seamless, but the film is a little too dumb for that. To cover that dumbness, Battleship engages in a series of increasingly absurd naval combat set-pieces that would make Michael Bay proud. All his tools are here: quick-arc wraparound shots, big explosions, flag-waving oo-rah displays of military hardware, slow-mo shots of people walking toward the camera, snippets of just the right rock tunes soundtracking the-heroes-get-to-work montages, and on and on. It’s important to note, however, that this isn’t a Michael Bay movie. It’s a Peter Berg movie. But Berg clearly loves him some Bay (ha! Bae! get it? anyway …) and this movie is a love letter to Bay’s summer blockbuster excesses. 

Is there a place for that? Maybe if you’re channel surfing in the wee hours of the morning and need something to kill time with. Maybe if you’re a flag-waving navy vet who wants to feel some nostalgic patriotism looking at military hardware. Maybe if you’re curious about how a movie based on such a nothing of a board game could ever work. But generally, should you go out of your way to watch this? Probably not.  

2.5 stars of 5: It’s got its moments and is almost worth it once, but I can’t bring myself to call this movie good.