Battleship

“The battle for Earth begins at sea.”

This is a film that has visual effects. Some of those visual effects are actually pretty cool. Some were even, I dare say, fairly creative. (Like the whirly, spiky, metallic ball of doom—I mean, what better way is there to take out the populous of a city than that?) Unfortunately, this is all Battleship really has to offer.

So why two stars then, if there was no real value to the story? Here’s my reason: a few of my points are awarded for certain technical proficiencies. They can be a very effective part of the storytelling process. Here, there were some of those proficiencies, and even some creativity... hence, the score it received.

But as far as the story is concerned, Battleship greatly suffers. Because of the myriad of problems from almost every aspect of its script, all we can really do is examine the bigger issues—starting with plot.

This film’s plot rarely ever made sense. Things were happening, but there was really no rhyme or reason to any of it. Never mind the aliens’ horribly ill-conceived invasion plan (or our horribly ill-conceived plan for welcoming visitors from another world); what was the deal with their weirdly-inconsistent passive-aggressive takeover strategy? Why shoot whirly-spiky balls into the middle of a defenseless city, but not destroy a fully-armed battleship that was well within range? Why did they allow any humans to live? (Also, heaven help us if we’re ever actually attacked by a ferocious, whirly-spiky A.I. system that can’t tell the difference between an armed battleship and a completely inanimate set of overpass supports.)

Anyway, let’s move on to the characters. The main character is a failure of a person who somehow finds purpose in life after being forced into the Navy. His flaw is that he lacks in humility; which, by the end, he overcomes... although the process by which this occurs is largely indiscernible. His arch-nemesis of sorts, a Japanese sailor, should have been the one to help him change into a better person. But, as they were mostly the same kind of person, they could only ever relate to, but never really change each other.

Now, here’s an idea that would have made for a very interesting approach to this film’s overall theme. Instead of humbling only the protagonist, what if the goal had been to humble everyone on the planet?  

For one, it would have actually given the aliens a purpose. I mean, suppose they had come in peace... only we fired first? They then respond by shutting down all weapons on the planet, and destroying all aggressors. Only the humble survive. A very real change would have been required of our protagonist!

And believe it or not, the set-ups for this were actually in place. They never attacked passive creatures, they only assaulted at one point to save one of their own. While physically on board the ship, it looked like they were trying to disable a weapons system. The whirly-spiky balls only targeted threats, etc. etc. See what I mean? Plus, There could have been an amazing moment where the main character’s heart visibly changed from red to green (aggressive to passive), through the viewport of an alien’s visor.

Instead, it appears the producers opted out of true story potential for the chance to blow stuff up.