Battleship

I saw Battleship in the theaters earlier this year. 6 times. I love this movie. It is my favorite film next only to the Avengers. I thought this was better than Men in Black III. Since many have already reviewed the plot, I am going to share some of my favorite moments and tidbits. Director Peter Berg is a Navy fan and it shows. Battleship has outstanding Transformer style special effects, lots of action, a great cast and support of the Navy, which includes many naval personnel, both active duty, retired WW II & Vietnam vets and wounded warriors. (You must see Army Col. Greg Gadson, a real wounded warrior who lost his legs in Iraq, personally take on an alien warrior-he is one tough soldier!)You don't see many of the latter in save the world films. Taylor Kitsch is wonderful as Alex Hopper, our slacker turned hero and I love Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood) as his responsible Navy Captain brother Stone. They have a nice vibe between them. Rihanna is absolutely bad ass as Navy gunner Raikes. She spent time with weapons training with a real gunner named Jacqueline and she modeled her performance partly on this tough young lady. You will see Jacqueline in the bonus specials. Brooklyn Decker is wonderful as Sam, Alex's girlfriend and physical therapist. The alien weapons are awesome (the first ship destroyers are designed to look like the pegs in the board game), both peg projectiles and the formidable shredders which eat metal and have a mind of their own. We humans are considered much of a threat until we directly provoke them. Time for the Navy to save the day! While we normally see aircraft carrier and fighters, it is great to see what a destroyer does and Director Berg does a great job of putting you in the action and making it easy to follow. Ignore the critics and the bad reviews. This is a great movie, with lots of action and humor. I have friends who didn't see it in theaters, rented it loved and now wished they had seen it during its initial run. Several of them bought it. One friend said it had more action than the Avengers. Sit back, relax and enjoy seeing the Navy save the world. This is a wonderful tribute to our veterans, active, wounded and retired. ************************************************************************************************************** THERE IS A BONUS SCENE AT THE END OF THE CREDITS SET IN SCOTLAND. Many people didn't know about it or missed it. The digital copy includes subtitles and languages and the bonus scene. **************************************************************************************************************** Some favorite scenes: Alex getting tazed after damaging a convenience store to get Sam a chicken burrito. Great comic skills from Taylor. Alex meeting Captain Nigata (TADANOBU ASANO, a famed Japanese actor-Thor fans, you know him as one of the Asgardian Warriors 3) during the soccer match. Nigata kicks him in the face, causing Alex a concussion and the loss of the game. This sets up the dynamic relationship between the two. During the Rimpac exercises (the Naval games that include 13 nations participate in) some great moments: Alex explaining the difference between a destroyer and a battleship (a destroyer is the Terminator, a battleship is a floating punching bag) The opening ceremony aboard the Might Mo, USS Missouri battleship (the cast and crew shot aboard the real Mighty Mo, including a rare opportunity to film the Mighty Mo out at sea (details in the great making of docs including a tour) with over 600 multinational sailors and WWII vets A great contrasting scene showing the difference in approaches Stone and Alex use while speaking to their crews. Stone as commander encourages his crew to be safe and learn cooperation from other nations and "Keep Charging." Alex as tactical action officer informs his crew to crush the enemy and outperform every other ship during the exercises. Watch the faces of the crew during Alex's speech when he says "We are not here in this weapons room to learn." Priceless looks from some of the real Navy sailors! When the Navy encounters the aliens and the action begins, note the care shown to include reactions from the sailors, they have some of the greatest reactions during the battles. "Who's running the ship? Hopper. Hopper is, we are all going to die?!" When a helmsman is steering the ship in a dangerous area, "Ordy, we are about to kiss these rocks, man! I can see fish man!" Alex in command of the John Paul Jones after the CO and XO are killed insisting on charging the overwhelming power of the aliens that costs Nigata his ship and the loss of the Sampson and brother Stone, being reminded by Petty Officer "Beast," (a great John Tui) that there are sailors in the water who need to be rescued. Key section in which Alex and Nigata begin to work together (their dynamic, contrasting styles help drive the film) while plotting their next move. When Nigata explains his water displacement strategy "seeing them without seeing them" Alex steps back and offers Nigata his chair, showing how much he has learned. Raikes (Rhianna) and other crew members give him questioning looks and he says "My brother would have done the same." One of my favorite scenes in the whole film. Watch the crew reactions as they first question and then rejoice in Nigata's clever usage of water displacement (like the battleship board game) to take out 2 alien ships. Destroyer John Paul Jones' destruction of the the third alien ship, which in turn sends out shredders to rip up the JPJ. Incredible special effects showing the shredders ripping the ship to pieces! A truly great scene where the survivors of the JPJ board the Might Mo. Beast says the ship is 70 years old with steam engines that he doesn't know how to run. There is a great view of the veteran sailors around the ship who come forward and step up once again when asked to fight. Great patriotic moment. I saw this on Memorial Day and the folks in the audience applauded. The Mighty Mo still packs a punch and it is worth it to see her take on the last alien ship and win. Another great section. Alex references the Art of War (a legendary Chinese guide to war strategy) several times during the film. Near the end he realizes the last confrontation reminds him of a section of Art of War. When the Mighty Mo defeats the alien ship, I love the exchange with Nigata. Nigata, "I can't believe that worked!" Alex, "Art of War, after all these years it finally clicked! Fight the enemy where they aren't." Nigata, "That's not what that means!" Alex, "Really?" Nigata, "Not even close!" Buy the ticket and take the ride. A number of reviewers on iTunes were surprised at the amount of action and enjoyed it as well. I think you will enjoy this fun film. I am sorry we won't get to see further adventures of Alex Hopper.

My first impression of Battleship , was one of OK, I'll just wait for it to come out on DVD because I'm not paying movie prices to see this on a big screen. In hind sight, this was a really stupid decision! I carefully watched all of the ads and purchased the brand new Battleship 2012 the day it became available. Even then, I found Amazon.com to have the best price on this product. I received it in less than the two days expected and in excellent condition, of course. My wife and I sat down, with a big bowl of popcorn, and watched this movie without even a bathroom pause. We didn't want to miss a second of this film. Yes, I know we can pause it, but it's just not the same, do you know what I mean? The time went by in a flash and the next thing we knew, we were looking at the credits. For a few seconds we just sat there, then looked at each other and said, "That movie was outrageously crazy fun! Let's watch it again." To say we were very pleasantly surprised at the acting, writing, overall plot with superior special effects, even throwing in a good 5 minutes or more of them actually fighting the aliens by playing the original form of Battleship the game, is a gross understatement. I can't figure out how a movie like this can get panned so badly by the alleged critics, appear to bomb at the box office and yet when we watch it, the film is outstanding. Do these critics not have an imagination or have any fun in life? The premise is somewhat predictable, so big deal. Like stupid humans we send a powerful radio beam message to another planet inviting them here. As stated by one to the science people, if this is successful it will be like the Indians sending a message inviting the Conquistadors and the more advanced societies always win. Meaning, we are the Indians. By this time we're saying, "No .... kidding." Sure enough this very advanced civilization of aliens come to Earth and it's not to play Hazbro board games either. Then the fun really begins. This movie is nothing but visual candy for the sci-fi adventure people, especially if you enjoyed the "Transformers" series. It's appropriate for just about any age as there is a lack of bad language, violence or blood and gore, all while teaching the lessons of thinking out of the box and good wins out over evil. The bottom line to us was, if Liam Neesan was playing a major role, this was going to be a quality movie and we were not disappointed. I highly recommend this movie as a multi-watch quality product appropriate for the entire family. Of course, if you're going to watch it on your own home theater, turn the volume up high cause it's gotta be loud to be good.

Pretty good movie. Good vs evil plot.

Get a beer and popcorn and prepare to step into the pure adventure of earth, once again, being invaded by a powerful and dangerous enemy from who knows where and who knows why they are here. But, if you have seen a dozen other sci-fi films over the last forty odd years, you will know the pattern: the creatures are ugly as a dead rooster laying in the Alabama sun, th lovely gals will be thrust into positions of power and influence and do a mighty fine job, the lowly underlings will toss out a few good one-liners and act terrified but come through for the heroic officer who must figure out the gooners weakness and save this planet. Lots of fun, some obvious 'this ain't gonna work', resilient and reluctant combatants, lots of flaming gigantic spaceships, a seemingly doomed earth. We don't know who and what the aliens are about. But who cares? We figure out (with the visual assistance of dozens of other films) that the creatures want to take over Earth and will stop at nothing to do so. Some pretty nice effects which don't dominate the film as much as I thought they would. Some stiff acting but the action takes up the slack and leads our soggy heroes to toe to toe combat with the Russkies, er, make that aliens with the aid of Might Mo, guns a blazin'. This film is mindless and mirthful for a couple of hours as you take the salt water stained decks and full speed ahead, cutlasses sharpened and load and run out the guns. Mix some old WWII battleship vets and AC/DC then blend in aliens and their fiendish weapons of destruction, toss in some missiles, some sarcastic comments and presto, you have this movie. Yahoo, go for it. There are and have been plenty of worse 'let's conquer the earth' films. Five sixteen point one inch shells for this baby and nice AC-DC song near the end that rocks.

One of my favorite movies.

Great movie, action packed. . .

Every time Battleship runs on cable I surf through it. I kept looking for a copy in the knock-out bin at Walmart, but never spotted one. So, I decided to just buy it on Amazon. Now I can watch it whenever I want. It’s definitely not a movie to be taken seriously. It is eye candy, but I love the script. I have read the reviews condemning the script. Maybe these people just don’t have a sense of humor. I think the script is hilarious; and eminently quotable. The cast is perfect. Jesse Plemons is very funny as the “dumb” Boatswain’s Mate, Jimmy “Ordy” Ord (“And I kept saying, ‘This is a BAD idea.’”). Rihanna looks great and is a treat to watch. Taylor Kitsch does a great job as do, Gregory “Right Now You Are Going To ACQUIRE That Courage, OR……” Gadson and Tadanobu “Dat book is Chinese. My way is better” Asano. I love John Tui as Chief Petty Office Walter “the Beast” Lynch. Hamish “It’s down THERE, in that NEST of ALIENS.” Linklater plays his part perfectly as the nerdy astrophysicist. Although the movie starts off a little slowly, it is necessary to set up the main characters. Once moving, there is plenty of fun action. There is a lot to recommend this movie when it comes to light sci-fi viewing. The sound track is very good IMO, too. “Battleship” is also a bit of a recruiting advertisement for the U.S. Navy (but that isn’t a terrible thing). If you can maintain a bit of a sense of humor, watch it! I think you’ll like it.

I just love this movie. Ok, so you need to engage in a bit of "suspense of disbelief" as it's the old 'aliens invade earth with the intent to overthrow' story line. But once you decide to go with it, it's a blast. There are many heroes...the young, rebellious officer that finally gets his act together when he becomes the unwilling captain of the ship; the army veteran, angry with his disabling injuries, rising fearlessly on his prosthetic legs at the moment of truth to engage the enemy hand-to-hand saying only "I got this!". There are scenes and other lines in the movie that you will never forget. And, don't miss the scene of the USS Missouri literally sliding sideways into position and simultaneously unleashing its full force and fury. The movie also pays homage to the veterans of wars past in the scene where the very elderly veterans of the Korean war and possibly WWII help the younger generation to bring the "analog" USS Missouri to life, all while you hear AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" in the background. I was so intrigued by this movie that afterward I went online and read the history of the USS Missouri...amazing. The relevance to the game "battleship" is really only a small part of the movie when a destroyer "plays" against two alien ships via a grid of the ocean. But even that is done very well and is plenty suspenseful and fun. Overall, this is a very feel good movie, it's as entertaining as it gets, full of action and it's respectful of our deserving servicemen and women. The acting is actually good too. Rihanna is especially good as a female member of the crew showing a lot of grit.