Well what a surprise BATTLESHIP is! I have to admit I totally blew this one off when it hit theaters with the same "why would I want to see a board game made into a movie" attitude that most of America had at the time. Director Peter Berg made a great film in "The Kingdom" in 2007 that nobody went to see and Battleship suffered the same fate in the summer of 2012. It's a shame, because this is a slam-bang, summer action movie of the highest caliber. Alien beings of the Transformer variety invade Earth in response to us sending a signal into the heavens introducing ourselves and they do NOT come bearing gifts.
Taylor Kitsch (acquitting himself nicely after that horrible mess John Carter) and Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood) are Navy brothers, Liam Neeson is their Admiral and beautiful Brooklyn Decker is Taylor's girlfriend, who also happens to be the Admiral's daughter.
All of that is secondary to the action scenes, which reflect all of the $200 million budget with some truly spectacular set pieces and action filled battles between our Navy and the invading Aliens. As a fan of SOME of the Transformers films, I thought this would be tired, but it's surprisingly well done and has just enough laughs and well done story lines involving some Pearl Harbor vets to bring everything together in the last 20 minutes. Over two hours, but fast moving, familiar yet fresh, Battleship has some real firepower. It was only during the end credits that I realized just how cleverly they worked in the coordinates you call out in the game and those nasty little pegs that sink battleships. Pretty clever! Battleship surprised me all the way to a solid B.
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