Masand: 'Battleship' lacks clarity

Rajeev Masand CNN-IBN | 14-Apr 00:33 AM

Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker, Liam Neeson

Director: Peter Berg

If the only yardstick you're meant to use while judging an action blockbuster is the number of gigantic explosions it contains, then Battleship, from Hancock director Peter Berg, belongs right up there with the big boys. Berg borrows many a trope from Michael Bay for this loud, dumb actioner that could just as easily work with the alternate title, "Transformers on the High Seas". It's hardly a coincidence then that both movies are based on Hasbro games.

Battleship opens with American scientists sending out a radio signal into space, in the hope of finding out if life possibly exists out there. Let's just say they get more than they'd bargained for when alien invaders in giant transforming spaceships land in the Pacific Ocean and try to mine the Earth's resources. It's up to a small navy fleet off the coast of Hawaii (led by John Carter star Taylor Kitsch playing Officer Alex Hopper), to figure out who they are, what they want, and how to stop them before they blow up our planet with their deadly missiles.

Films like this rely heavily on special effects, and truth is the effects in 'Battleship' look expensive and sound loud without actually depicting anything with much clarity. There's no real tension in the scenes where the alien intruders show up on the US warship, and there's a sense of monotony that creeps into the supposedly high-adrenaline battle sequences. Much of the silliness could be ignored if the film was at least entertaining, but Battleship is fun only in spurts.

Rihanna, playing a weapons officer on Hopper's warship, gets to fire guns and yell "Boom" a few times, and Sports Illustrated model Brooklyn Decker plays Hopper's physiotherapist girlfriend who's clearly been hired for her ability to fit into clothes two sizes too small for her. Liam Neeson and Alexander Skarsgard have small cameos too, but it's unlikely you'll remember any of the acting in this film.

To be fair, it's unlikely you'll remember much about anything in this film, save for the fact that it's loud, and everything goes crash, bang, boom at some point. I'm going with two out of five for Battleship. Strictly for those who enjoy watching things being blown up, and couldn't care less about plot or characters.

Rating: 2/5

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