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: The Rundown

“Does that look like a refrigerator to you?”

Fresh off Bulletproof Monk, we move to Peter Berg’s The Rundown, another of my childhood favorites.

This one was another mistake, clear as day to me now. Crazy how much people change in 10 years.

Yet, like with Bulletproof Monk, I can see why I was drawn to it.

There’s something very likable about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. A talented showman from his days with WWF/WWE, he’s quite capable of a convincing performance.

Then, I look at his resume and I just…ugh.

Doom, The Tooth Fairy, The Game Plan, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Hercules, San Andreas. It’s not good, folks. His name will likely come up in one of the next episodes of Winners And Losers and it’s not looking like he’s gonna be the last one standing in the ring this time.

Despite all that, I still feel drawn to the guy. He’s got panache and a lot of confidence and I guess it’s hard not to be lulled by that.

He carries that same ego and tenacity in his first lead role. Brazen and emboldened, the Rock is…well, the Rock. He’s gonna mess you up and Berg can’t help but remind us of that early.

The Rundown‘s opening sequence is one of its numbered highlights but that’s not to say the film straight stalls out and nosedives the rest of the way.

There are a few dialogue morsels sprinkled throughout, most funneled through Christopher Walken. The Rundown prides itself on its action comedy identity and so runs its mouth a lot, echoing give-and-go banter between Johnson and costar Seann William Scott during large swatches of the viewing experience.

This budding camaraderie helps time run smoothly early but as the film progresses, begins to become more of an annoyance than aid. It’s as if the film had begun to transform into a Scott movie. The dialogue begins to invade American Pie territory and that’s when it’s hard not to abandon ship.

Once the writing tidbits begin to dwindle, the picture starts to lose its luster. While Berg came into shooting with the intent to focus on stunt choreography and action design, there are significant spreads of the film which involve none, leaving the production solely reliant on this brother bash-type trash talk. When it’s working, it’s corny and awfully frat boyish but at least sustaining tread. When it’s not, it’s mind-numbing.

These vocalized vomits are Scott’s forte, sadly. Each of his films tend to introduce themselves as a pleasant but raucous evening of booze and babes, jokes and jabs thrown amongst bros all in good fun but eventually, as is usually the case, the night comes to the generally inevitable conclusion of a passed out partygoer fresh off disposing of the night’s stomach deposits.

I’ve seen this story before.

So while The Rundown earns points early, the midpoint of the film is likely the tale’s precipice. From here, our story squanders valuable time on treasure discovery and whipper snapping, something it simply can’t help itself from indulging. These scenes are plot pushing at its finest and are very easy to discount when you recollect the film’s happenings during the credits. Try to remember them. They help explain the aftertaste later. Is that….vinegar?

Rosario Dawson and Walken don’t get anywhere near the amount of screen time they deserve, especially in the back half and I suspect that’s one of the likely causes for this roll down the mountain.

The picture goes out swinging with an action sequence in its final third, trying to corral its audience back. While enjoyable, the punches it misses over the course of the run time linger in the mind more than the ones it hits.

Despite how it’s aged, I’m gonna miss The Rundown. I’m clearing my bookshelf and there are a lot of films that likely won’t make the cut. This was probably the last time I ever watch it, a movie, like Bulletproof Monk, I’ve watched a dozen times but is time to let go.

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. (2 Fast 2 Furious, Doctor Strange, Johnny Mnemonic, Jason Bourne, Suicide Squad)

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 The Rundown: 62.

If nothing else, The Rundown served as a platform for Dwayne Johnson’s career. Berg gave the potential this guy had a spotlight and the rest is history but as a product, The Rundown reminds me of Conor McGregor these days. It has boisterous flair and almost endearing arrogance, a true talent for histrionics but an inability to make it 12 rounds or execute at the critical moments.

Movie Review: Lone Survivor

I hadn’t planned to see this but happy I did.

Lone Survivor depicts a failed U.S. Navy SEALs mission in Afghanistan. Our four main characters are played by Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch from Battleship, Emile Hirsch, and Ben Foster. All hold their own in their roles. Foster always gives solid performances. He’s an actor you can count on. Hirsch doesn’t bring anything extravagant to the table but he keeps you interested. I felt Kitsch had some potential in Battleship and he proves me right here. Now to Wahlberg. I’m going to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the guy. He’s a guy who seems to play the same role in everything except that it’s not always cool. Sometimes he comes across as too brazen, although some of the roles he takes call for such acting, and originality is hard to pull out when you play the same role every time. When it comes to stereotypical acting, I’m more likely to pull out a Liam Neeson or Jason Statham movie then I am a Wahlberg movie. However, Wahlberg was made for this role and for this movie. This is the character that Wahlberg was born to play. He gives the audience stuff they’ve seen plenty of times but adds some extra spice to the mix with some serious, engaging dialogue and action scenes. The characters are people in this, not expendable action figures where they blow something up and then die. These are human beings with families back home, fighting for a country that believes in values like freedom and that alone is enough reason to fight for them.

This movie is brutal. When I say brutal, I mean that in the utmost sense of the word. This is a war film and director Peter Berg does no sugar-coating with this material. He shows it to you as it is and as it was, never extinguishing the fires of intensity, horror, or pure adrenaline that this film has to offer. At times, it can be hard to watch, watching characters continue to fight despite bullet holes in their bodies, ears half-blown off, fingers totally blown off. It’s not quite to the plateau that Saving Private Ryan reached, but it is up there. They’re not the best action scenes I’ve seen, but when it comes to hardcore realism, it’s high on the ladder.

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. (Just Go With It, Real Steel, Miracle, Scrooge, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)

80-89   It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (Gangster Squad, Elf, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Poseidon, Iron Man)

70-79   It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (The Usual Suspects, 21 Jump Street, Escape Plan, Captain America: The First Avenger, Dawn of the Dead)

60-69   It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (Pacific Rim, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Disaster Movie)

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. (Along Came Polly, Aliens, Alien Resurrection, Full Metal Jacket, Thor)

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. (Patriot Games, The Great Gatsby, Pitch Black, Alien, Serendipity)

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. (The Contract, Pride and Prejudice, Redemption)

20-29   What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (The Sum of All Fears, Thor: The Dark World)

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.” (Midnight Cowboy, Dark Fury, Alien 3)

My score for Lone Survivor: 85.

It’s grotesque and difficult to view, but Berg’s war story feature is one worth watching, one that commemorates the sacrifices our troops made and continue to make today.