Although it is supposed to have been inspired by the Hasbro Playstation/Wii game, itself descended from the naval battle board game of yesteryear, this ‘battle for earth’ science fiction action flick is a lot more like Transformers At Sea.
Two brothers (True Blood heartthrob Skarsgard as the older, responsible one, and John Carter hunk Kitsch as the reckless tearaway) serve together in the US Navy. Big bro’ is a serious career officer in command of a vessel and the wild, crazy one is a weapons officer (uh oh) about to get thrown out of the service for brawling. Then an advance fleet of reptilian warrior ETs from a galaxy far, far away splash down in the Pacific and it’s game on. Gosh, who do you think is going to save the planet, against all odds?
Admiral Liam Neeson frets, Rihanna (making her modest acting debut in a rare, fully clothed situation) plays a kick ass weapons expert, and a number of genuine American combat veterans add to the macho, patriotic, Stars And Stripes flag waving, gung-ho hoo-rah mood. The scale of property destruction is off the charts – whoops! there goes Hong Kong! – and the dialogue so daft you expect director Peter Berg, whose previous work like Friday Night Lights and Kingdom has been in a more thoughtful vein, is spoofing alien invasion blockbusters, except that many of the laughs are apparently unintentional.
It’s big, noisy, very dumb yet quite fun ‘boys and their toys’ fare if you are feeling silly.
Is Battleship suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...
While there isn’t much blood visible, several encounters with the aliens are upsetting and deadly attacks of weapons — particularly one of bouncing fiery bombs shredding through cars full of families on the motorway – are too much for those of us with tender and nervous dispositions, let alone children. One for the over 12s only.
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