Battleship

Totally unnecessary (and they should all apologize to Cowboys & Aliens). I don't think we've ever been invaded by bigger alien idiots in film history, because I didn't shake my head as much during those as I did during this film, not even during the recent Battle Los Angeles. From my perspective, Battleship is not a film that pokes fun at the style of Michael Bay (and others), it's not even stupid enough to be funny, it's just another silly spectacle that doesn't even deserve ILM's top special effects (for which I give it a star). I had to wait an hour and a half for the only sympathetically over-the-top scene (yes, the veterans boarding and the Missouri setting sail really had something going for it), and the wait wasn't great. So a star and a half.__P.S. The completely unsympathetic actors are dominated by the singer Rihanna, whom I don't know, but she gives me the impression that the casting discovered her somewhere in a tree and persuaded her to participate in the filming with a basket full of bananas.__P.P.S. My previous comment of course does not apply to Liam Neeson. (09/09/2012)

A celebration of the U.S. Navy, a tribute to its veterans, and ego-stroking of the stars and stripes that they are still the best. But it's also a genre in reverse, with Berg also making fun of it. He loads the cannons to the sound of AC/DC and lets the old guys mentor the digital-obsessed youth about how the analog days were a blast. So far, so good. But it's 130 minutes long and all the shenanigans, when it really starts to get fun, only start happening in the second half. Until then, it’s pure misery and the essence of what the film later makes fun of at the end. I wouldn't survive watching it a second time. 3 ½. (07/08/2012)

If you want to see a WWII ship drift across the waves of the Pacific... I think you should go for it. It may be pretty to look at, but that's about it. The story is weak, it pushes patriotism quite a bit; it has it all – flags, the sun in the background, military pride, veterans, invalids... Just a great American movie about a military setting. There's some fighting, some friendship, some loss, some explosions. Yeah, and there are aliens, but nobody really knows what they want. I guess, like, to mine the Earth or something? Nobody knows. (10/06/2019)

An average and unremarkable American popcorn action film, based on stunning visual effects and a flat script, it doesn't offend, but it doesn't amaze either. Taylor Kitsch unfortunately doesn't handle the lead role well at all, failing to be expressive in any way (like in John Carter), but thankfully this is smoothed over by the acting of Liam Neeson and Alexander Skarsgård. In short, a film that really only stands out because of how mediocre and formulaic it ultimately is. (12/05/2015)

Non-infantile Transformers H2O taken to absurdity. Which, paradoxically, helps the experience, because Berg pokes fun at all the classic tendentious popcorn movies. And don’t try to tell me he’s being serious. My poor soul (sated in the second half with a guilty pleasure) cannot admit this (aside from an aware me: unfortunately very real) possibility to be true. No, no and no! (20/04/2012)