First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself
Comparisons to Michael Bay and his Transformers series will be inevitable. Same toy company, same FX team, same style cinematography, editing, sound, same music composer, same free run of the American armed forces. Fortunately Peter Berg doesn't have a sense of humour (as seen in his previous films, especially Hancock) so while the jokes are all serious business at least they have the silliness taken out of them, which automatically makes this film 50% more enjoyable.
So what's going on in these big blockbuster films today? Apparently if something is alien our camera lenses just can't comprehend how awesome it is and it flares out. I really was fine with all the lens flares of late but this film gave me flare fatigue. Even just the hot spots in their alien suits of armour flare out. Traditionally using flares was to help smooth over the compositing, I really don't think this needed so many though, the FX looked fine from what I could see through all these blue streaks.
I do like that the aliens have funky goatees.
Now to answer the questions everyone's been asking. No one says "You sunk my battleship" in the film. But to be fair (SPOILER:) there is only one battleship in the film and it doesn't sink (END SPOILER). The way they work the mechanics of the game into the film is rather amusing and works surprisingly well. I love that the alien missiles are shaped like the pins from the game and drop into the hulls like those little plastic pieces do too. And while ships in the films are more mobile than in the game there is a whole section of "miss" and "hit" that's one of the best sequences in the film that they make very clear and easy to follow and yes, entertaining.
One does have to question the alien's plan. They are shown to be doing very specific things, destroying some things (anything hostile shows up red) and leaving others (anything not worthy of destruction conveniently shows up green). Perhaps motivations can be clarified in further films because it seems like they have the technology to wipe us out but never thought to use it properly.
What really rubbed me the wrong was was all the patriotism, especially concerning the war wounded and the elderly. It's corny enough to be a parody of itself but I never went along with it. One character was obviously hired for his ability to lack legs rather than his ability to act and he stands out like a sore thumb. However Taylor Kitsch comes off far more lively in this film and the rest of the cast are fine too. I hear Rihanna is actually a singer, well she's no better or worse than anyone else here. The strangest thing of all is seeing Tadanobu Asano in a Hollywood blockbuster and reconciling that with his character from Ichi the Killer. Although obviously he was in Thor but it never clicked until now. He is awesome. Even in Battleship they give him one of the more kick-ass characters. You should all watch Survive Style 5+ and Funky Forest and of course the aforementioned Takashi Miike classic Ichi the Killer to see his awesomeness.
Anyway he's not in the film that much. Unfortunately neither are Alexander Skarsgård or Liam Neeson. But when they are there the film is better for it. I did enjoy this one, more than I thought I would. A big part of that would be seeing the hipster dude from The Future playing a science nerd who gets to beat up one of the aliens. It's big loud dumb fun and hardly ever as gratingly annoying as Transformers. Entertaining and enjoyable.
