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.

In the Heat of the Battle

The role of Sam in the Battleship film demanded intense stamina and physical strength from the actress. It is not like posing with swimsuits, when you climb high mountains and perform even a few easy stunts. Her character is a military psychologist trying to help out severly injured war victims. At first she had to reassure the Afghan war veteran Mick Canales, whose brutal image is delivered by the real U.S. Army Colonel named Gregory D. Gadson, that life goes on. Then with the fearful scientist Cal Zapata portrayed by Hamish Linklater she joins a mission to sabotage the Hawaiian Saddle Ridge Station, where the intruders plan to use the sattelites to send a call for reinforcements to their home planet.

The aliens start their attack with surrounding their landing site with an impenetrable force field. At the same time a group of naval warships taking part in the RIMPAC training course is trapped inside the area. The realistic portrayal of RIMPAC comes with the actual footage made with the permission from the event holders. At the same time the incident is being discussed by the officials. Here a few more cameos are presented including the ones by Peter MacNicol, who got promoted in Hollywood to the role of the nameless U.S. Secretary of Defense and David Jensen performing an unnamed Director of NASA. Peter MacNicol nowadays stays away from the big movie projects preferring smaller roles on TV series and providing VOs for video games. His recent work here was the Batman: Arkham City (2011) title.

At sea, you can also expect a lot of adventures, including the tour showing the American warships from different historical eras. The creators of Battleship try to explore the idea of a destroyer being the core fleet power. Althouth there are some battleships as well like the Navy icon – USS Missouri, which already happened to be in another movie – Under Siege (1992) starring Steven Seagal in the leading role. Here its crew is represented by a veteran team, and there is a good plot twist to explain it.

Another interesting finding is the appearance of aliens, who are the living beings with their own weaknesses, shining armour and powerful technologies. The scriptwriters enjoyed playing cat and mouse with the public, while avoiding the usual course of events, starting from huge losses and following a road to the decisive victory. Here the main characters constantly lose and gain something showing that luck isn’t the most loyal thing in the world. The crew has to use logic to disclose enemy tactical plans and to outwit the foe just like in the board version of the Battleship. Finally, international cooperation is a nice addition too. Quite symbolically, that after the Pearl Harbor (2001) movie the American captain Alex Hopper bows to the wisdom of his Japanese colleague named Captain Nagata and performed by Tadanobu Asano.

The U.S. Navy officer in the Battleship film has enough courage to admit that the might comes in alliance with the victory being more reachable, when you get support and invite some fleet veterans to the play as well. Some WWII veterans also took part in the filming and other ones were hired from the local army reserves. This blockbuster also features modern special effects, notable camera work, where even the news and the ships’ interiors have their screen time share, and appropriate excellent humor. The second plan cast is doing its job well. Alex Hopper is aided by his fellow mates aboard the John Paul Jones destroyer, while the fatal perspectives for the future are sounded out by the Lighthouse space program director named Dr. Nogrady and portrayed by Adam Godley.

Know Your Enemy

Read on further about the soundtrack of Battleship.