Battleship

Movie Review: «Battleship».

English Title: Battleship.
Production: USA, 2012.
Release Date: 03.04.2012 (Japan).
Russian Distributor: UPI (19.04.2012).
Official Website:
Genres: Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi / Thriller / War.
Director: Peter Berg.
Starring: Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna.
Running Time: 131 minutes.

Alien Tactics

18th May of 2012 will mark the latest stop in the U.S. for the new Sci-Fi Action film titled Battleship, Review of which goes below. Its budget fell behind John Carter slightly, though its creators are offering some fresh ideas beating former genre’s cliches.

Shooting expensive films for Hollywood studios is akin to playing the Russian Roulette. Throwing out the hundred millions of dollars of funding, vast human and company resources these entities sometimes become a hostage to pure luck. If huge amounts of money has already been invested, closing the project down could lead to getting huge losses, though if the studio’s owners still believe in the idea and are ready to keep on, finance all the new costs, the risk does not go away either. The reaction of the audience is often impossible to predict, and many critics around the world are now praising low-budget motion pictures with a strong story, characters or art value, while yet releasing all the negative emotions upon the movies made for pure entertainment to the mass film market.

In this regard, the most illustrative example was the release of Sci-Fi film John Carter (2012) worldwide in the early spring of 2012. The story looked like the one wearing the potential for several blockbusters based on the literary templates created by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). However, already the first weekend the new film, which had cost around 250 mln. USD, handed over all the box office positions to the animated movie Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (2012). There aren’t such appealing rivals on the date, when the Battleship (2012) film starts its sailing though.

The latest production venture brought Walt Disney Studios around 200 mln. USD of losses, though the film itself collected nearly 255 mln. USD in revenues. It would be incorrect to compare these two figures directly, because the total income doesn’t show the share taken back by the cinemas, while the announced budget doesn’t reflect any marketing expenses. It is noteworthy though, that here in Russia John Carter became a box office hit collecting 33 mln. USD, what is more than any other country, except the U.S., of course. Last, but not the least contributing factor was the idea of bringing its Director, Actors and Producers to Moscow to build up the hype.

Unfortunately, the cast and crew of Battleship decided not to stop by at Moscow, and their Press Tour this time started in Tokyo (Japan) moving on to Madrid (Spain) and London (UK). The Japanese public could watch the movie at the World Premiere on the 3rd April of 2012. That is very symbolic, and later on in this Review we will explain why. At these events the celebrities could chat with the journalists and engage in various Photocalls.

The traveling team included movie’s Director known as Peter Berg as well as the actors Taylor Kitsch of John Carter, Brooklyn Decker, Alexander Skarsgard and singer Rihanna, who now became an actress. Peter Berg himself, actually, was in Moscow in December of 2011, where at the 86th Russian Film Market he showed some footage from the nearly finished version of his film. The Producers of the project were careful, when choosing the release date moving the initial one almost a year ahead trying to pick just the right spot.

The War is inevitable

Read on further to find out, how the Battleship was created.