Battleship
Tags: good versus evil, violence

Plot synopsis:
In 2005, scientists discover in the Gliese system an extrasolar planet, which is named Planet G, believed to be the closest planet to Earth having conditions nearly identical to Earth. In 2006, NASA completes the construction of a transmission device in Hawaii that is five times more powerful than any before it, and a program to contact the planet, known as The Beacon Project, begins.
Meanwhile, slacker Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) gets arrested while attempting to impress Sam Shane (Brooklyn Decker), daughter of U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Terrance Shane (Liam Neeson). Infuriated at Alex's lack of motivation to better himself, Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård), Alex's elder brother and a naval officer, forces him to also sign up for the U.S. Navy.
In 2012, Alex is a hothead and disrespectful lieutenant and Tactical Action Officer aboard the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS John Paul Jones, while Stone holds the rank of commander and the Commanding Officer of USS Sampson. Alex is in a relationship with Sam and is in danger of receiving a disciplinary discharge from the Navy. Their ships join the 2012 Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) in Hawaii.
During the exercises, five alien spacecraft arrive in response to the NASA signal. Their communications ship collides with a satellite and crashes in Hong Kong, causing heavy casualties and damage while the other four (a mothership and three alien warships) land in the water near the coast of Hawaii. Sampson, John Paul Jones, and the JMSDF Kongō-class destroyer Myōkō are ordered to investigate. Upon arrival at the indicated location, they discover a massive floating structure. Alex and two crew members, Raikes (Rihanna) and Beast (John Tui), are sent to approach the structure in an armed Zodiac.
When Alex touches the structure, it knocks him away, and generates a massive force field that encloses the Hawaiian Islands, separating the Navy ships from the RIMPAC fleet. Then, the alien warships appear from underwater and face the three Navy ships in a defensive posture. Under Stone's orders, Sampson issues a blast from its foghorn, but one of the alien warships answers it with a damaging sonic blast, forcing Stone to order the John Paul Jones to fire a warning shot. This causes the alien warship monitors to reevaluate the Earth ships' friend or foe status, changing the color for the Navy ships from green to red and the alien ships respond with shots of their own. In the ensuing engagement, both the Sampson and the Myōkō are destroyed and sunk, and the John Paul Jones is badly damaged. In the ensuing crossfire, the Captain, the Commanding and the Executive Officers of the John Paul Jones are all killed.
From the Zodiac, Alex sees his brother die in the explosion aboard the Sampson and returns to his ship. Being the most senior officer left on the ship, he is forced to take command, to his own disbelief and the disbelief of the crew. Now seeking revenge for his brother's death, Alex angrily orders an attack, but Beast manages to dissuade him. They recover the survivors from Myōkō, including Captain Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) with whom Alex is in a rivalry. The structure launches shredder-drones towards Hawaii, which attack and destroy military and civilian infrastructure installations on the island of Oahu.
In Oahu, Sam, a physical therapist, is accompanying retired U.S. Army Colonel and double amputee Mick Canales (Gregory D. Gadson), on a mountain hike to help him adapt to his prosthetic legs. Sam and Mick run into some police officers who order them to get off the mountain. The officers head up the mountain but they are ambushed and killed by the aliens. Later, Sam and Mick run into scientist Cal Zapata (Hamish Linklater), who works at the communications array and informs them that the aliens have killed his grad student and taken over the communications array. They then realize that the aliens are modifying it to reestablish communications with their home planet; their shredder drones' attacks on the island's infrastructure was intended to prevent the military stationed on the island from responding.
On the John Paul Jones, naval personnel capture a semi-unconscious alien from the communications ship. The alien attacks Alex when startled by a bright light in its eye and forms a brief telepathic link with him, showing him that they have successfully attacked and conquered other planets. Other aliens arrive to rescue their captured comrade. One alien stays onboard, intending to sabotage the ship, and Alex kills it by tricking it into the firing line of a 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 gun. Investigating the captured alien's helmet, Ordy (Jesse Plemons) is able to determine that the aliens are sensitive to sunlight.
Ashore, Zapata recovers his spectrum analyzer from the aliens. He is confronted by one in the process, but his lack of action from fear causes it to not consider him to be a threat and lets him go. Using it, Sam and Mick contact the John Paul Jones crew and inform them that in four hours, the aliens will be able to contact their planet.
Now under Lieutenant Hopper's command, the John Paul Jones prepares to retaliate. As the force field has disabled their radar functions, Captain Nagata suggests using NOAA's tsunami warning buoys around Hawaii to track the alien warships. Using this strategy, the John Paul Jones destroys and sinks two of the alien warships using standard missile, but are unable to hit the evasively maneuvering third warship. At dawn, they manage to make the third warship face East, where Alex and Nagata shoot out its bridge windows. Blinded by sunlight, the warship's crew is disorganized. Seizing the chance, the John Paul Jones successfully destroys it with its full arsenal, but the ship becomes targeted by shredder-drones. The crew abandons the John Paul Jones, which is rapidly destroyed by the shredder-drones and is sunk.
Alex, along with the survivors of the John Paul Jones and Myōkō return to Pearl Harbor and commandeer the USS Missouri, a decommissioned battleship turned into a museum ship. They reactivate the battleship with the aid of the retired veterans preserving her, and confront the massive floating structure, which is revealed to be a part of the submerged Mothership. In the ensuing battle, the Missouri's 16-inch main guns severely damage the mothership, disabling the force field in the process. Meanwhile, Sam, Mick and Zapata attempt to stall the aliens at the communications array. The Mothership reactivates, and prepares to fire shredder-drones. Instead of shooting the Mothership, Alex uses the last shell to destroy the communications array, cutting the aliens' contact with their home planet. Before the Missouri is destroyed, Australian F/A-18 fighters from the RIMPAC fleet arrive and destroy the shredder-drones and the mothership, eliminating the alien threat.
A ceremony is held by Admiral Shane to honour the military personnel, where Alex is promoted to lieutenant commander, and presented with a Silver Star and his brother's posthumous Navy Cross. After the ceremony, Alex is given an offer to become a Navy SEAL. He then asks Admiral Shane for his daughter's hand in marriage. The admiral initially refuses, but then invites Alex to lunch to discuss the matter, referencing how Alex and Sam met.
In a post-credits scene, three teenagers and a handyman in Scotland discover a crashed alien pod. When they open it, an alien hand reaches out, and they run off in terror.

Review: Nothing slows down a good action flick like a damn love story in the background, or the hero dealing with his feelings or, worse still, putting brats in the line of fire.
1. I came in with low expectations - I was expecting something horrible, boring, long and pointless, but despite myself I liked it, I laughed at the jokes, I connected with the actors (yes, Rihanna too), I was excited by the action and while clichés the plot held my interest 2.
So in conclusion, "Battleship" is a fun, corny, typical summer movie that I like but as you see a lot of people didn't.
Even the idea that the movie is based on Hasbro's classic board game of the same name is rather disingenuous: yes, there is a battleship involved in the action, almost all of which takes place at sea, but other than that any resemblance to the game we all grew up playing seems purely coincidental.
Taylor Kitsch, who stars as Lt. Alex Hopper, is an empathetic hero whose struggle to overcome his personal weaknesses is ultimately played out with the fate of the world at stake when he finds himself and the crew of his Navy destroyer in the wrong place at the wrong time—and smack in the middle of an amphibious alien invasion.
One can only hope that if Rihanna pursues further acting roles, she'll improvea lot.The plot isn't deep, but it does have some positive aspects, incorporating elements of personal redemption, self-empowerment, and self-sacrifice, all concepts that more movies would be well-advised to advance.
In reality, Neeson has almost a bit part (in fact you see most of it in the promotional adverts), clearly there to increase sales of the movie; with the bulk of the 'acting' coming from Taylor Kitsch.A ludicrous start with Kitsch playing a 27 year loser who, on the recommendation of his brother (Alexander Scarsgard) joins the Navy, suddenly to become at Lt Cdr - The script is clearly written by someone with no military knowledge or experience and that the actions, demeanour and interaction with all that are supposed to be military personnel, is a non sense.
However, it gets worse;with aliens that have made there way to earth with great looking craft,that impressively rise from the ocean (great CGG) - you see it on the commercials for the movie, the only weapon they possess are melee type Armour - pretty ridiculousreally and by this point the movie has lost any form of credibility.
I also liked how they used real military and vets for this film..they can't act very well but you'll find it in your heart to forgive that..too many "SH*T" bombs in the movie..I think if you make a movie about "SH*T" then you can say it...other wise leave out all the bad language, same goes for "F**K": they call that porn..ha..
Story is the least important element here, so lets just say that in  between all the sweeping helicopter shots and blinding lens flare, an  international Naval war games exercise is interrupted by alien  invaders, and it's up to reckless officer Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch)  to save the day.
BATTLESHIP's strange  juxtaposition of bombastic special effects framing ancient board game  mechanics simply doesn't sit right, and it's hard to imagine the teen  audience, so crucial for success at the summer box-office, tearing  themselves away from the latest CALL OF DUTY to embrace the turn-based  'excitement' of this ridiculous film.
But this one has aliens which were strangely absent in the original source material.Ridiculous as it sounds on paper, BATTLESHIP was made and here we have a passable summer time killer.The special effects in the movie are impressive; I watched a regular screening so I can't say much for the 3D.
The editing in the action scenes was a bit choppy but thankfully this does little to hinder the fact that they're nice to look at.The movie wasn't advertised as having a thought provoking story or anything serious; the crew behind the movie knew that they made it to be nothing more than a popcorn movie that doesn't take itself seriously which is why unlike CLASH OF THE TITANS the special effects don't seem to be a hindrance to the simple story.
Though I just wish someone took the time to improve the alien design which looked like it was cheaply ripped off from a video game.But the story itself isn't even worth mentioning; sure, it's a simple alien invasion but that's about all it is, there's nothing more to it.
Even for a simple alien invasion movie the dialogue the characters said seemed forced; never do they connect to the audience in some way so when someone goes down or when someone's in danger, you don't feel anything.
The script is just bad; it looks like it was written by a kid who thought that the "cool stuff" (video game looking aliens, cheesy dialogue meant to sound deep, witty one-liners, etc.) should be added into the movie and that's why those were there.
Cheap and cheesy dialogue makes the already flat cast of characters even more uninteresting; try not to groan while watching any of the "romantic" scenes or the obligatory patriotic scenes as seen in any movie made involving the military.
It simply was not as bad as everyone says it is.I liked the choice of actors even the two from Friday Night Lights.The guy who played the injured sailor was pretty funny.And what's a movie without your resident geek.
If you are looking for something like that then watch "On Golden Pond" or "Eat Pray Love", not a movie about battleships and aliens......
This is my only recommendation after wasting 2 hours and $130 in the Cinema with familyIf you have seen the trailers that's all the action you will see in this poorly written and directed movie..Seems like 90% of the money has been spent on making the trailers and marketing to dupe in the audience.
It does not get better until you walk out of the cinema scratching your head and scream at someoneDon't expect any more action other than what's in the trailers -that's about 30 minutes in this two hour dragyou can sleep through the whole movie and won't miss a thing.
To be honest, when I saw the first trailer for this movie I wasn't excited about it all, it just seemed like another terrible Transformers sequel, but some friends dragged me along and somehow convinced me to watch it and I'm totally glad that they did because it was actually a pretty decent summer blockbuster!
It shows both sides of the story, not just the Humans but the Aliens' point of view too, this is what was quite unique about it and makes it different to all the other crappy action films out there e.g Transformers 2 and 3.
All in all I think that Battleship isn't as original as a film like Inception but it's still a great summer blockbuster and it's definitely worth watching on the big screen.
I'll end saying that it a complete waste of your time seeing this movie but still, if you want to get angry and don't know how it's a good therapy.
Peter Berg and Universal execs probably envious of big box office profits of latest trend of Michael Bay Aliens vs US Army , decided to adapt another of Hasbro titles , old "Battleship" game into a movie.
Taylor Kitsch was not too bad in John Carter but in Battleship his character is worst kind of stereotype , suffering from Captain Kirk syndrome) but like in GI Joe it does not help.
But a year from now I doubt anyone who watched Battleship , basically Independence Day made for 2012 season ( come to think of it Roland Emmerich could also direct this ) , will remember that they paid cash to see it without embarrassing themselves.Universal just expanded 200+ million dollars for a bad militaristic seasonal product.
Overall, average actings from all the casts.The highlights of the movie is not the special effects but the 'tactical art of navy war' skills that the crews of the battleship is showcasing.
Next we switch to him joining the navy to fight aliens – now she is impressed.Funny thing is that my experience with girls who look this good is that they don't hang around bars alone - there is generally an ape of a boyfriend watching her every move from the far side of the room.Script was predictable junk and the main players were devoid of any character - yawn.Maybe Hollywood script writers should read some Philip K Dick, Azimov or Pohl and (unlike I robot,)actually stick to the story..
Not going to spoil anything but if you're a fan of a good action/adventure like Transformers (the first one), Terminator, I,Robot etc then you'll find this quite the enjoyable movie.
2 Hours of my life waisted watching this, The acting was hammy, It was just pure crap, Taylor Kitsch must feel, the visual effects are done quite well, Liam Neeson can't even save the movie although I'm sure he is walking away with a cheeky grin and a few million for his appearance in this car crash, the casting of Rihanna was a mistake (well we all knew that from the get-go) The so called 'humour' scenes were unbelievably cringey and you just could not help but shake your head while witnessing it.
and especially the addition of the 'cool' f**k yeah this is America soundtrack, Creedence at the end and AC/DC in there tooI had a lot of sympathy for Taylor Kitsch especially since this was going to be a big year for him as Hollywood actor after John Carter bombed, but in this you can tell the guy is as wooden as a desk.I'm ashamed of myself after seeing this movie and even more ashamed I didn't walk out..
The way the alien technology worked doesn't make sense, so tonnes of plot holes in the storyline as well but I suppose you could say that about a lot of big budget films...
The casting of this film was awful, Taylor Kitch I did not mind in his previous John Carter, but he did not seem the same in this, Alexander Skarsgård played his half brother who looked absolutely nothing like him, if they made a big budget only fools and horses, here are Del-boy and Rodney...The film has some great effects but I did not like any of the macho Navy seals and the love story was dull with no chemistry between them..I think I wanted the Aliens to win about half way through to I could go home.
The Special effects are good and it has some enjoyable moments but they are few and far between..Give me Transformers any day of the week, a lot better then this drivel..One good thing, Rhianna was good in it, hope to see more of her in movies, best thing in it by a mile..If your still single love, look me up ;-) otherall..A generous 2 out of 10 because the special effects where great, pity about the actors and the story, but at least America saved the world again..Yawn.
I agree with the review of perkypops who writes:'Take a lot of CGI, a plethora of big names, throw in some awful acting, a very poor script, a collection of forgettable characters, and a couple of hours you want to throw away, and you have "Battleship".' That says it all.This film is a load of cr*p.
The lead actor is a joke; a blond bimbo is just as bad.Rihanna should stick to singing and Liam Neeson is a tw*t who is there to pick up a fat pay check.He is the same character in all his ham movie performances.Talk about getting millions for being dreadful.The only reason I give it one above the minimum is that somehow I was able to get to the end, plus a few half decent special effects.2/10.
Taylor Kitsch had a bad acting entire movie, plus cliché of "no aliens can conquer us" films.
But if you are looking for an action movie for a night in with a someone than this could be a good choice.I went in thinking it would be silly but I did not know it was supposed to be based on the board game until the movie was over.
He has twisted this concept idea adding rubbish cgi aliens basically look deformed transformers on steroids with a hint of Micheal bay explosions syndrome trust me my mind has turn into jelly!omg did this director in particular ever proof read the script with his team to clarify his stupid mindset which is a insult to our intelligence, for instants here is the stupidest line in the history of film making.this guy called Stone Hopper & his brother Alex Hopper talk about their goals in life, so suddenly Stone Hopper strikes a glance at this blonde girl walking past him wanting a chicken burrito at the bar, so Stone Hopper says "whats your name?" and the blonde girl response was "i am hungry" lolavoid this movie like the plaque trust me cinema goers Worst movie of 2012!.
Although Liam Neeson wasn't in as many scenes as perhaps people wanted, he was a very dominant character and was definitely present all the way through.I had a great time watching this movie and would recommend it to anyone..
This film is so bad i don't know where to start.The first 30 minutes are pointless and should have been cut.The acting is non existent,Rhiania is laughable,in fact after 40 minutes i thought it was a comedy and was expecting Leslie Neilsen to be the captain of the US fleet.It reminded me of the film Aeroplane,i did laugh out loud at Rhiania walking around trying to shout orders,but it was more of a squeaking mouse.The high ranking crew of the ship are aged 25-30,which looks wrong,there is 80"s top gun music all the time which is really annoying,How 200 million was spent on this garbage is anyones guess.I looks at what awards the film has got before viewing it,IMDb says 11,i thought that cant be right after seeing the bad reviews,and wondered if it was for razzes,sure enough,nominated nearly every award.If you like rubbish like Transformers then Battleship is for you,but if you are over 10 years old watch any over movie except this it would have to be better.
i went to watch this movie thinking i will get the same feeling as watching the first transformers but i was bitterly disappointed.at the beginning of the film you might think that you are watching a chick-flick or a ROM-com.the acting was so lame.the special effects are damn good but it was too cheesy.there is no real flow between the scenes and a lot to leave you confuse.all in all it was a show-off of the US Navy ships.
We have, for example, an alien life form that is supposed to be SO far advanced as to have ships that can travel light years through space, hide in plain sight on Earth, not getting picked up by radar, and destroying the world instantaneously and yet the are so easily destroyed by 80 year old WW2 veterans on seriously outdated and old ships built in the 1930's and 40's Now, I am in no way trying to downplay the war veterans, but this movie was stupid and pointless.
It is a pity those guilty of making this entertaining joke of a film forgot to redact their names from the credits.Take a lot of CGI, a plethora of big names, throw in some awful acting, a very poor script, a collection of forgettable characters, and a couple of hours you want to throw away, and you have "Battleship".
I had half wanted it to turn into a Hawaii travelogue but by then I didn't care.If you like to laugh out loud in all the wrong places this film will do you a lot of good and is recommended to see just to prove singers cannot act, and the movie business has no taste..
It's just a bad storyline, but the movie has great special effects and a lot of action.
It is a noisy, clichéd and unbearable piece of trash that exploits the work of CG artists and paying customers who just want to be entertained.A simple way to describe Battleship, is that it's basically a $200 million naval recruitment video that was made by a schizophrenic 8 year old who likes video games and things going Ka-Boom.The main heroes in this movie are indeed American navy sailors, but the one thing the film-makers really failed at is making these people likable and realistic.
I think it's actually pretty plain awesome!- and how they worked the BATTLESHIP game into the movie is pretty cool.The man who lost his legs gets the chance to fight again & be the hero, the 90 year old retired vets get a chance to save the day, the story between the main character and his girl is actually pretty cool- and when Liam neeson says NO when he asks for permission...
I didn't go in with any expectations on the acting, the characters or the story all i was hoping for was a good action loaded movie with cool effects that you just could just turn of your brain to and enjoy.
I don't know, so my conclusion (becuse the movie is based on a board game...) is that they just went to earth to play a real match in battleship...and then we have the characters.
At first sight, it just seems like another brainless Transformers movie, but when you're given the creative and complex story of Battleship and the battles that do take place, you are watching something new.
The 70 year old battle ship at the museum they had to use replacing there battleship that was destroyed had more gun power??Finally it was very poor acting from all character's.This film should have not hit the cinema's..