Fix: Hot people, dumb action, Hasbro game adaptations that have no reason to exist, peak 2012
Platform: Netflix
Netflix Summary:
During an international naval exercise, a small fleet of warships becomes the last line of defense against an alien invasion that could destroy humanity.
FYA Summary:
Let’s take a little trip back to 2012: Friday Night Lights had recently ended, True Blood was hitting bananas levels, Rihanna still felt the need to work, and the Transformers franchise was somehow continuing to make big money at the box office. What a time to be alive, y’all! Thanks to all of these factors, we were gifted the film Battleship.
Battleship is… a movie. And it was one I was VERY excited to see at the time, given that it stars not one but TWO of my favorite dudes from Friday Night Lights, Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins) and Jesse Plemons (Landry Clarke), plus plus PLUS Alexander Skarsgård, aka Eric Northman, the hottest vampire I had ever seen. I didn’t care about the plot, which is good, because there’s not much of one, but I had played the game quite a bit as a kid. One of the “selling points” the trailer made was that this movie was from Hasbro, “the company that brought you Transformers,” which means there are a ton of explosions and the introduction of aliens in robotic suits that look suspiciously like Transformers. (Aliens, for your reference, are not a part of the original game.)
Anyway, the premise of the film is that Taylor Kitsch and Alexander Skarsgård are brothers (hot), and they’re both in the Navy, and Taylor (character name Alex Hopper) is dating the daughter* of Liam Neeson, an Admiral who thinks Alex is bad news. Welp, turns out Alex is now serving on a battleship under the Admiral, so that’s fun for both of them, but things get particularly tense when, well, they find an alien? And then aliens launch an attack on Earth for some reason? And that’s when the Big Explosions start happening!
All of this to say, you don’t watch Battleship for the storyline or the script. You watch it for this:
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!!!
*I think this is true. I didn’t feel like looking it up to verify.
Familiar Faces:
As I just mentioned, the cast of Battleship is an embarrassment of hotness riches. Taylor Kitsch, while not having to do much acting, still gets to crack that Tim Riggins smile a few times while showing off his John Carter muscles (that film had come out only two months prior and definitely hurt his career—not that Battleship helped). Rihanna gets a few zinger lines but also doesn’t have to do much acting… now that I think of it, no one in this movie has to do much acting except maybe Liam Neeson? Because he can’t help himself?
But, like, who needs acting when you get this?
Mayday mayday! I’ve been sunk by the SEXY!
Hilariously, the only main character who isn’t a total smokeshow or at least handsome (Liam Neeson’s still got it), is “Boatswain Mate Seaman Jimmy ‘Ordy’ Ord” played by our darling Jesse Plemons. Bless him, he still looks (and acts) a lot like Landry at this point:
Basically, it’s like if Landry had joined ROTC at Rice. Grandma Saracen would’ve been proud!
Couch-Sharing Capability: As Vast as the Ocean
While I wouldn’t recommend inviting your snobby cinephile friends, I would strongly suggest watching this with a group, preferably composed of some FNL fans. Your viewing experience will certainly be enhanced by a vocal, raucous crowd not afraid to question the sheer stupidity of what is happening (and then enjoy it anyway) and more importantly, a crowd willing to catcall, hoot and yes indeed, holler.
Recommended Level of Inebriation: Sink a Few
In case I haven’t made it clear, you do not need your brain operating at full capacity to follow this movie. You don’t even need to catch most of the dialogue. So feel free to toss back a Dark ‘n’ Stormy or a Sea Breeze or whatever, it doesn’t even have to be nautically themed—unlike the game, there are no rules in Battleship.
Use of Your Streaming Subscription: Seaworthy
Nothing about this film screams “serious,” so I guess you can’t accuse Hasbro/Universal of false advertising. It’s fun, it’s dumb, and it stars a lot of extremely attractive people. In my book, that’s worth the price of streaming. Plus, aside from Liam Neeson (who has made a second career out of action movies) and Rihanna (who can do whatever she damn well pleases), none of these actors (Kitsch, Skarsgård, Plemons) would be caught dead in a big budget action Hasbro movie nowadays, so it’s kind of incredible to see them in this film. 2012, y’all, definitely a moment in time!
