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Yes, it’s true.Â Hollywood is now not only adapting books into screenplays (makes senseâ€¦though Self Help books like “He’s Just Not that Into You” and “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” are a stretch), remaking classics (they better stay away from “Indiana Jones”â€¦), but now, they are onto board games.Â The first of these desperate grasping at what little cash the public has left, was “Battleship” directed by Peter Berg. “Battleship” is just another flimsy excuse to empty our pockets of our hard earned money.Â Tempting us with names like Liam Neeson, Peter Berg, Taylor Kitsch and Alexander Skaarsgard, we fall victim to yet another cinematic disappointment.

Start to finish this film is trying so desperately to draw you in, unsuccessfully.Â Thank God I’m not lactose intolerant with the amount of cheese throughout this film.Â With a highly unbelievable and unremarkable love story, ridiculous supporting characters (namely Rihanna, Dekker and Linklater),Â and aliens who are technologically advanced cave men, this film fails to deliver what the previews portrayed.Â There was too much money spent on marketing this film as an action moving “like ‘Transformers'”

The characters are unremarkable, lack depth and with lines that an eight year old would’ve written. Â Alex Hopper (Kitsch), is nothing more than a petulant school boy who doesn’t want to be an adult.Â His older, more emotionally balanced brother, Stone Hopper (Skaarsgard), convinces him to join the Navy after committing a felony for a woman he just met.Â Sam (Dekker) is not only the love interest but the beloved daughter of Admiral Shane (Neeson).Â The story skips over 5 years in which the romance is still going strong after the painfully unromantic and over the top “burrito incident” and now Hopper is a Captain in the Navy. Hopper still behaves like a young boy picking fights with anyone who is available.Â If they are trying to convince us that Hopper doesn’t want to succeed at anything, at least they did that right.

Conveniently, navy ships from all over the world have come to Hawaii for a sort of “kum by ya” retreat.Â All this doesn’t help when an group of aliens (who seem all but intent on beating their odd fists on their chests and seem hell bent on destroying, well, everything!) show up and spoil all the R&R.Â Japan and America have to work together to “save the planet”, when all the audience wants is a decent action scene that is not riddled with unnatural , obvious and horrible dialogue.Â Comments like “Boom”, “Mahalo mother f*****s”, “Fire everything!” are just a couple of the rare gems you can expect to hearâ€¦.multiple times.

The idea of intelligent life existing beyond Earth continues to be a subject of interest.Â “Battleship” continues to miss the mark here.Â Scientists essentially cause this war with aliens from so far away we’d better not actually do the math (there is no way they could travel that far in so short a time).Â Not to mention one scientist is so blatantly used for foreshadowing, he might as well hit us over the head and shout “This is what’s going to happen!”.Â Linklater who plays a supposed genius scientist, is a poor man’s Jeff Goldblum from “Independence Day”.

The aliens are a species that is almost humanoid (freaky hands and red beards?), from a planet much like ours. They have advanced technology and weaponry and of course a weakness (which I will not disclose in case any of you still want to see it). These aliens seem more advanced than humans in some ways and yet they don’t even attempt to communicate and just start destroying everything. Â I did like the design of their weapons though, the bombs looked like the pegs you use in actual battleship, well done there.

I was expecting a little more from Peter Berg with great films like “Friday Night Lights” and “The Kingdom” in his repertoire.Â Even though there is constant motion and the desire from forward momentum, this film lacks anything that a summer blockbuster ought to have.Â The performances by our main characters are as good as the material they were given.Â It is not the actors’ fault, but perhaps a film based on a children’s board game wasn’t an entirely well pondered idea.Â That being said, this still might be the film for you if you have to choose between all the top notch films out there like “Dark Shadows” and “The Dictator”.Â “Battleship” falls right in line with those, as a comedy that once again insults the audiences intelligence.

The Bottom Line:

Matinee it. The movie really is not what it pretends to be in its trailers, so be ready for a letdown.

Until next time…

See you at the theater