Movie Review: Battleship

“It’s the North Koreans, I’m telling ya!”

I rant a lot about script writing on here because I believe it to be one of the pillars of storytelling. To be clear, script writing and plot lines are different things. One can be good and one bad in the same story.

For example, most quality comedies such as ones helmed by Adam Sandler during his prime, Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey have bountiful scripts but rather bland plot lines. The dialogue, the comedy is the driving force. We remember the quotable lines, the fervor in the delivery. We don’t reminisce about Ace Ventura catching the dolphin or Buddy the Elf fixing the engine on the sleigh. We glorify the performance of the characters, not the people who tell actors where to go scene to scene. The plot is just an Uber from A to B, not that important. It’s the writing that truly matters.

But just as talented penmanship can shoulder a film, it can also drag it down. A competent plot can find itself sunk by an inkblot. Conversely, a strong script can keep a disheveled outline on its feet. One is simply more valuable than the other often times and Battleship is a serviceable demonstration of that.

From a framework standpoint, Battleship makes some questionable narrative choices. Some bother me out of personal preference but others I find to be misguided selections. For example, within the first ten minutes of the picture, Alexander Skarsgard certifies himself as the best actor on set. Whether through character draw or personal ability, Stone Hopper and himself are the most polarizing. Taylor Kitsch can’t compete, no offense meant. His role is lifelong screw-up who’s hard to sympathize with.

Skarsgard find himself out of the picture within a half hour. Questionable.

I understand Brooklyn Decker is a supermodel who’s very nice to look at but every second we spend with her, away from the picture’s main course (battleships), is wasted time.

The subplots in this film are fragile at best, parasitic at worst. At times, it feels their presence is solely dictated by a run time quota. Whether director Peter Berg’s intention or not, these secondary stories are not supporting the main arc; they’re supplanting it. Any scene which does not involve a battleship, alien weaponry or military equipment on screen is null and void. That is the meat and potatoes of your story, Peter: battleships and aliens. Given the characters you have (this is a “make things go boom” movie so you can guess the level of character we’re dealing with), why would you ever subvert your greatest asset for them? It just makes no sense to me and I took off quite a few points for it. Bad plot is bad.

And Liam Neeson is in your movie, Peter. Can we find a way to get him on screen for more than 10 minutes? Nothing quite grinds my gears like bringing in big name stars to read a page of lines and piss off. Most people in Hollywood have the talent level to play “Fleet Admiral”. You hired Liam Neeson. Why bother if this is what you want executed? If your intent is to get people to buy tickets by plastering his name in the trailer, it’s disingenuous and below you. Be better and that goes for all production studios who do this shit, too. Grow up.

The visuals are engaging and you can see Berg made some strides since he made The Rundown, which I discussed just a few weeks ago. The CGI is more polished, dictated more acutely but never reaches a level of surreal imagination. There’s still a few rungs up the ladder Berg has yet to climb but progress is progress and I’ll give him credit where credit’s due. To see someone improve in their passion is encouraging if nothing else.

But the thing that holds this intricacy of character portrayals, plot chronicles and explosions together are screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber. Without them, this film is sunk and beyond repair. So much of their dialogue and banter keeps you invested as a viewer in scenes which carry no other attractive attributes. CGI done well means little if the context surrounding it is flat. No one likes flat pop. The possibility of death and any building of tension or emotional response off of it doesn’t exist if the characters are trite.

Good writing can cover those holes sometimes and the Hoeber brothers are by far Battleships‘ strongest destroyer, without question. There are quite a couple scenes which come to mind when I recollect what I watched here and none of them involve the action sequences or the subplot leeches. None of that is memorable or executed to a proficient level to hold a space in my short-term. In one ear, out the other, as they say.

The quips are what continue to ring upstairs for me. My takeaway from this film is likely biased given my writing background and education. If I had gone to school for film or animation, maybe I’d feel differently but given the splotches the film showcases to the naked eye, I’d say that’s unlikely.

I’m not a film expert, have never proclaimed to be, likely never will be. I don’t know much of the terminology of the profession and I’m certainly not up-to-date on the latest in computer imaging and digital design. I am someone with two eyeballs though who’s watched more movies than anyone I know and I think that counts for something.

If you’ve only seen a handful of apples in your life, your imaging of what an apple looks like will be based on that. That’s basic psychology. The more apples you look at, the more you taste, the more refined your picture.

I’ve watched enough movies, specifically ones illustrated and marketed like this, to know: the repartee, the wordplay, is what keeps the propellers turning. It was the one thing keeping me on my toes, the one thing that cracked smirks.

Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale. 

90-100  It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Batman Begins, The Matrix, L.A. Confidential, Her, Taken)

80-89  It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (Spider-Man: Far From Home, Dumb and Dumber, Pokemon Detective Pikachu, The Matrix Reloaded,Wanted)

70-79   It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Matrix Revolutions, Triple Frontier, I am Legend, Ip Man 2)

60-69   It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (The Rundown, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Doctor Strange, Johnny Mnemonic, Jason Bourne)

50-59   This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, XXX, The Silence, The Fast and the Furious, Brooklyn’s Finest)

40-49   This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (Doom, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Power Rangers, Underworld: Evolution)

30-39   Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30′s ironically define the 1930′s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (Bulletproof Monk, High-Rise, Most Likely to Die, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Crow: City of Angels)

20-29   What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (XXX: State of the Union, The Snowman, Avalanche Sharks, Catwoman, The Gunman)

0-19      Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (The Extendables, The Coed and the Zombie Stoner, The Forbidden Dimensions, Cyborg, Outcast)

My score for Battleship: 66.

Battleship is more Independence Day than it might want to admit but it has many of the same elements: nationalism, machismo, youthful arrogance and oh yeah, aliens. Shame it couldn’t produce the same notoriety because as it is, Battleship is two writers away from being completely forgettable.

Movie Review: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

“If you’re gonna shoot at something, kill it. Otherwise, take up knitting.”

When I talked about G.I. Joe: Retaliation years ago, I said this original installment had built something small at minimum and it was a disservice to start over.

While I still subscribe to that thinking, hard not to understand the want to clean house.

Stephen Sommers’ 2009 installment was not attractive to begin with and has aged poorly since. The attention to detail in the visual sections is especially unnerving, a slop so heinous he was nominated for worst director at the Razzies. While some design elements show promise, the computer graphics are unfocused and lack a crisp finish. Eye candy is often a must for these blockbusters. What we get here ain’t candy. More like unseasoned green vegetables.

With its focal lens blurred, many of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra‘s action sequences are cut off at the knee mid run. Just when you feel like some momentum is building, it’s chopped down by another unrendered vessel. This happens on a continuous loop, beginning to end, no remedy in sight. Eventually, you stop getting invested in the propulsion the film’s accruing. You know you’re about to get disappointed again. A car chase in the second act is by far the film’s best work but no other set pieces come close to approaching that level before or after.

G.I. Joe was a big brand when I was a kid and while it was never Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Pokemon for me, I subscribed to it. The latest in weapons and defense tech, the most grandiose of explosions, it’s hard not to get at least a little excited about that.

Yet it’s very taxing to get energized about The Rise of Cobra. It’s like you have to make yourself work to enjoy it. Most of the action is so dilapidated by its own incompetence it takes you out of the experience more than pulls you in. The Rise of Cobra doesn’t excel in the personnel department either.

G.I. Joe feels more like Average Joe here, colorizing some characters in one shade rather than several. Some personalities show promise (Snake Eyes most of all and he doesn’t even speak) but others are so far below the line they should be ascribed to it’s easier to shed the dead weight. I suppose they did with the sequel but less effort required if you just did it from the get-go.

Remove some lines from Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans early and the picture has close to little bravado, which is rather shocking considering military machismo is the G.I. Joe calling card. The movie’s comic book tonality comes across but not its emphatic personality, which, again, is the shtick of the stamp. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the material or an inability to translate it.

The Rise of Cobra doesn’t even feel like a G.I. Joe film. It behaves like a special unit 80’s TV show like The A-Team but with more corniness and fewer enduring qualities. Some lines of dialogue are especially painful and for a story rewritten as many times as this was, you wonder how many more times it would have taken to get it right.

Tatum’s Duke, our lead character, could not be any less interesting while also amassing unlimited abilities at will. After complaining about transferring to the air force in the film’s intro, Duke pilots like Han Solo in the final stages. He’s also capable of driving submarines through closed courses and operating million-dollar robot suits in the span of days.

Main characters are not always the stars of the spotlight. They’re sometimes overshadowed by the film’s christened funny man or an antagonist. There’s nothing wrong with that and often a main character more subdued does the film a great service. Here, Tatum is so far down the rabbit hole any time spent on him feels misused and with much of the picture revolving around him, the result is as to be expected.

Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale. 

90-100  It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Batman Begins, The Matrix, L.A. Confidential, Her, Taken)

80-89  It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (Spider-Man: Far From Home, Dumb and Dumber, Pokemon Detective Pikachu, The Matrix Reloaded,Wanted)

70-79   It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Matrix Revolutions, Triple Frontier, I am Legend, Ip Man 2)

60-69   It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (The Rundown, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Doctor Strange, Johnny Mnemonic, Jason Bourne)

50-59   This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (XXX, The Silence, The Fast and the Furious, Brooklyn’s Finest, Death Race)

40-49   This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (Doom, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Power Rangers, Underworld: Evolution)

30-39   Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30′s ironically define the 1930′s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (Bulletproof Monk, High-Rise, Most Likely to Die, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Crow: City of Angels)

20-29   What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (XXX: State of the Union, The Snowman, Avalanche Sharks, Catwoman, The Gunman)

0-19      Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (The Extendables, The Coed and the Zombie Stoner, The Forbidden Dimensions, Cyborg, Outcast)

My score for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: 59.

A surprisingly proficient twist is encumbered by glaring plot holes, nauseous conversations and myopic direction. I just don’t understand why it’s so hard to make a movie about toys. The trademark should write itself but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles couldn’t do it and neither could this. Sidenote: a prequel surrounding Snake Eyes is due in theaters this fall and they’ve done another recast. Yay.