# Battleship (2012)



## Anthony G Williams (Aug 10, 2013)

Yes, I know, I probably shouldn't have been watching this film given the volume of critical comment it received on its release last year. The fact is I had just bought my first Blu-ray player because my DVD player had died (I am not exactly an "early adopter" of new technology and don't generally replace equipment while it's still working) and was looking for a cheap Blu-ray film to try it out. The store had a BOGOF offer on a few remaindered discs, only a couple of which were SF films I hadn't already seen, *Battleship* being one of them.

The plot is simple enough: hopelessly idealistic scientists (led by a gormless Brit, who else?) send a welcome message to an Earth-type planet orbiting Gliese. They receive in response several hostile spaceships which land in the Pacific near Hawaii, where they are engaged by some USN and Japanese ships on exercise. The heroes (no, I don't mean the aliens, silly) have to resort to the old battleship USS Missouri, now a museum ship in Pearl Harbour. They eventually win, the principal hero gets the girl, and the survivors live happily ever after (oops, sorry, hope these unexpected revelations won't spoil the surprise!).

My expectations were very low which probably helped me to enjoy the first part of this film a little more than I had anticipated. The story had a bit more character depth and humour than I had expected and the CGI of the alien spaceships was fun. However, while Taylor Kitsch seemed more comfortable in his role than he was in *John Carter*, I still find it hard to understand why he's given leading roles at all. The only real actor in the production was Liam Neeson, who could do this sort of thing in his sleep (and looked as if he was).

The film's main problem is of course the lack of credibility. No, I don't mean alien spaceships promptly arriving from 22 light years away, which even if their ships could travel instantaneously meant that they wouldn't have received the message from Earth for 22 years. I don't even mean the ludicrously inefficient guns with which the aliens, clearly aggressive beings with technology centuries ahead of ours, fired at the human ships (although the giant circular saws were fun). Or even the way in which one USN destroyer was able to knock out two of the giant spaceships simultaneously. Or even that the hero not only captained the ship but was off doing all sorts of other heroic things, such as chasing aliens gun in hand through his ship, and subsequently engaging a spaceship with a .50 cal rifle. Captain, that sort of thing is what you have a crew for, you should be in the CIC directing operations.

No, what really blew it for me was the central focus of the film, the battleship. This put to sea apparently with no delay, crewed by a few sailors from a modern destroyer guided by handful of veterans on museum duty, and successfully engaged the enemy. Umm, guys, this ship was decommissioned in 1992 and was made a museum ship in 1998. The very first thing that a navy does on decommissioning a warship is to fully destore it, with particular emphasis being given to removing all ammunition. The idea that after a decade as a museum ship it would have live HE shells and propellant cartridges on board, not to mention fuel in the tanks and boilers full of water, is ludicrous, as is the notion that you could just turn the metaphorical ignition key and sail off in it (it takes a long time to raise a head of steam). Not to mention sail and fight it with a couple of dozen crew. When last in commission this ship needed 1850 men to crew it and while it wouldn't need all of those for a quick trip to fire the main guns at the enemy, each of the three 16 inch triple turrets required 77 men to operate it. The fire control system was complex and also required a large and highly specialised crew, but in the film they fortunately had Rihanna, who could do it all by herself a few minutes after arriving on board. I was also amused by the way four men carried an HE shell through the ship. Even the "lightweight" 16 inch HE shell weighed in at 1800 lbs (the AP shell was much heavier). And anyway, that class of ship had a built-in transport system specifically designed for transfering ammunition between magazines. Now you may say that it unreasonable of me to use my somewhat specialised knowledge to criticise the film, but if they're making such a big fuss of featuring the battleship they might at least try to get major facts concerning it in vague sniffing distance of reality.

So yes, the film deserved to bomb. It seems that to enjoy modern blockbusters like these it is helpful to be as ignorant as possible, since the more you know, the more nonsensical they become. I found this one best enjoyed as a spoof, like an "Airplane!" version of a silly action movie, but it could have done with some better jokes. 

(An extract from my SFF blog: Science Fiction & Fantasy)


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## quantumtheif (Aug 24, 2013)

*laughs*

It was a bit ridiculous how they restored that battleship in mere hours. It would take months to restore a battleship, and they would have to replace most of the parts.

You pretty much said it all the movie was bunk.


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## Grimward (Aug 24, 2013)

This film one is one of my guilty pleasures.  I knew generally (e.g., I didn't have the 77 specialists per turret knowledge) that everything about taking the Missouri out into combat was just plain silly and wrong.  I just seem to have a compulsive need to watch 2 scenes in the movie: first, the scene where the Destroyer takes out its third alien ship (ie, right after the Taylor Kitsch rifle scene you mentioned, AG), then the scene later in the movie where the Missouri is pounding the alien platform ship.  

That, and I've stood on the Pacific War Memorial that appears in the end of the movie. 

Otherwise, I entirely agree.

Now if I can just resist the urge....


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## paranoid marvin (Aug 24, 2013)

I don't mind action films where I can disengage and just have a bit of easy viewing, but this film was appalling on all levels. 

I watched films before which have been classed as turkeys (but imho aren't) like Waterworld and The Postman, and I've enjoyed films in ridiculous settings such as The Core, The Day After Tomorrow and Independance Day. At least they had some redeeming features and were enjoyable to watch, but Battleship has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.


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## Dave (Aug 25, 2013)

My son did work experience some years ago at a company that did promotional work for this film. As a result he got to watch it (after signing disclaimers) about six months prior to its release, but only in a green screen version without any of the special effects. He told me to avoid it with a very long barge pole and I have still never seen it. Rihanna acting, really??


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## Anthony G Williams (Aug 25, 2013)

Dave said:


> Rihanna acting, really??



No, not really 

The special effects are the only conceivable reason for wanting to see it.


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## psychotick (Sep 12, 2013)

Hi,

I'm with Grim, it's a guilty pleasure. Yes there are gaping problems in the plot big enough to drive a battleship through, and yes Rihana should go back to singing. (And by the way why were those old timers all standing on the battleship waiting to be called back to active duty anyway? Telepathy?) But once you suspend your disbelief it's a damned good popcorn movie.

Cheers, Greg.


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## jastius (Sep 12, 2013)

i just watched it an hour ago. the veterans were part of a volunteer organization that gave guided tours to school groups and such of the battleship. they also served to preserve and maintain the battleship. for the purposes of the movie they presumably took this to maintain the missouri in battle ready condition. perhaps such an organization would. there is one up this way that keeps several dozen steam locomotives in working order. supposedly there was a larger then normal group of veterans as they were all there as part of the pacific fleet games they were asked to attend at the ceremony at the beginning that took place upon the battleship to open the navel exercises.
not telepathy. they were caught in the same bubble that the island was in.  
as for heaving ordinance across ship? i think they would have needed three more guys and a carry net to divide the load. rhihana did a respectable job as feisty halle berry type ... but that is not really acting if you act like yourself.
the glaring parts for me were the acting commander not having a clue as to his position in the chain of command .. that is really something they continuously hammer into you. who you report to and who you are responsible for. i bet most military guys could back line their chain of command through the joint chiefs.
anyways the music was cool.


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## Dozmonic (Sep 12, 2013)

Even the CGI couldn't keep me watching. If I recall, I loaded up smite and played a couple of games of that. The thing I don't understand with these kind of movies is why whoever is running the show doesn't get someone with some actual writing talent to go over the story and make it at least half decent. The money that'd cost is a drop in the ocean, comparatively speaking


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## jastius (Sep 12, 2013)

i liked the part where they dropped the forward anchor to slew the boat around... it looked cool even if it doesn't make sense in terms of physical force...( have to be the rear anchor)

dosmonic are you volunteering?   i hear peter jackson's horde is hiring


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## Dave (Sep 12, 2013)

Dozmonic said:


> ...why whoever is running the show doesn't get someone with some actual writing talent to go over the story and make it at least half decent. The money that'd cost is a drop in the ocean, comparatively speaking


You *do* often see "advisors" credited on films. I expect that in the end, they don't want to have the truth get in the way of a good story.

In the early days, the _Stargate SG-1_ TV show used USAF advisors to make it realistic of air force procedure (before they got all the alien tech and it became pure fantasy.) I believe that contributed a lot to its early success.

Often when watching a film, and there is an obvious scientific or technical mistake, it can be such an annoyance that the audience focuses on that rather than the story and so SF needs to get it right if it is to succeed. There are threads here at Chronicles with all the mistakes in _Apollo 13_ and in _Independence Day_. I can't say I spotted them, but it must have really annoyed some people enough to record them all.

I think that in some cases, the director/scriptwriter don't think the audience is clever enough to spot them, and in others, they aren't clever enough to spot them themselves, and in others, they really just don't care.

_Battleship_ sounds like it may be supposed to be a little tongue-in-cheek, and played for comedy, as the story (remember I haven't seen it) sounds fairly unbelievable even if Rhianna could do all that she does. I'm sure I've seen that plot (Museum ship with veterans brought back into action) a few times before too. At least once with Steven Seagal.


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## Dozmonic (Sep 12, 2013)

jastius said:


> i liked the part where they dropped the forward anchor to slew the boat around... it looked cool even if it doesn't make sense in terms of physical force...( have to be the rear anchor)
> 
> dosmonic are you volunteering?   i hear peter jackson's horde is hiring



Nobody can save the Hobbit from what they've done to it  Bilbo has already plateaued as a hero. It'll be pretty hard to forget what he did at the end of the first movie and pass him off as someone less than that in the next two.


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## biodroid (Sep 13, 2013)

I reckon The Hobbit will get better even though the first one was brilliant. I think Taylor Kitschs problem is with directors, he seems to end up with the ones that know SFX very well but cant direct the actors properly. Can anyone say George Lucas, a brilliant story teller who has a keen eye for SFX but man those two Skywalkers were poorly directed.


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## George Ian (Jun 11, 2014)

All the old navy men I know keep 16inch ammunition handy in case of just such an emergency.
Where's your imagination?
Sorry, couldn't resist it - the film was truly rubbish.


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## Rafellin (Jun 11, 2014)

Top notch brains-out entertainment with moments of hilarious genius and the utterly necessary defiance of physics if a showpiece would be laid low by attention to real world detail.

The two summer 'bombs' that season (this and _John Carter_) both featured Mr Kitsch. Which is unfortunate for him, but he didn't give a damn about the critics and neither do I.

Love both films. Regular fodder for relaxation veiwing.


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## Rodders (Jun 12, 2014)

I watched and enjoyed Battleship once but i don't think it'll stand up to multiple viewing. John Carter, however was brilliant.


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## Anthony G Williams (Jun 12, 2014)

Rodders said:


> John Carter, however was brilliant.



Umm - can't quite agree with that....: http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/537933-film-john-carter-2012-a.html


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## Rodders (Jun 12, 2014)

OK, perhaps "Brilliant" isn't the right word but i did find it very enjoyable.


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## Rafellin (Jun 12, 2014)

Anthony G Williams said:


> Umm - can't quite agree with that....:



No worries, I do.


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