Escape to the Movies: Battleship

Dangit2019

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The Great JT said:
Maybe Men In Black 3 will just be "so bad it's stupidly funny" bad instead of "skinny-dipping in a pirahna tank" bad.
I doubt that it will be entertaining-bad. It's either going to surprise everyone and be awesome/good or it's just going to be bland.

Although, I do like the idea of the most expensive movie ever made being a complete critical bomb; it would give the guys at redlettermedia something to laugh at.
 

Dangit2019

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SaneAmongInsane said:
...It's a movie based off the Battleship board game? Was anyone expecting anything truly great from it?

I think at certain times people need to lower their expectations. I haven't seen the flick, but if I was going to I'd walk into it not expecting it to be good and hoping to be pleasently surprised a little bit.

Really you can't judge it the same way you'd just a movie like Avengers or Dark Knight. You just can't, it's fucking battleship.
Well, the thing is, it just looks to me like they copy-pasted the Transformers formula over to a different setting and using its familiar name for cheap brand recognition (they don't even say "you sunk my battleship" or anything like that? wtf?).

You know what, if this movie had done something actually neat, I would have seen it. For instance, what if, instead of setting it in modern times with all the implausible technological failures happening for no reason other than convenience, the movie was set right smack in 1940-1945. You could have the Americans battle with the aliens at Pearl Harbor, and then about halfway through the movie, the forces on both sides of WWII call off their own fighting and take on the aliens together.

To see something like the Germans fighting alongside the Russians, or the Japanese helping out the U.S. troops would be EPIC, and a WWII era would be more appropriate for the "classic" feel of the game.

It doesn't take much to make something entertaining out of an idea or brand, it's just that people don't want to do anything because they might have to "risk" the demographic; which is ironic, because I most definitely would've been more enthusiastic to see the movie in the paragraphs above than the one in theaters right now.
 

Atmos Duality

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I really was hoping the movie would turn into "So bad it's good", but it looks like it's "So bad, it's Bay."

And that's the kind of "bad" I really don't want to see.
 

CM156_v1legacy

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Mar 23, 2011
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The never say the line, eh?

That's a shame. Had they done so, I'd have been willing to go sit through the entire movie, just to see that. What a shame
 

Avatar Roku

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Soviet Heavy said:
ZZoMBiE13 said:
Credit insert 1: We're all concerned about "Beware the Batman" Bob, you are not alone. Looks like they're trying to mix the dark edgy "Animated Series" vibe with the more lighthearted tone and silliness of "Brave and the Bold". Both great shows on their own merits, but not something that should be mixed. Kinda like "Hey, you got chocolate in my Preperation H! No, you got Preperation H in my chocolate!"

Credit insert 2: That is a shame. Truly.
They already tried mixing Dark Batman with Goofy Batman, in The Batman. It was halfway decent, with a really neat take on the Joker, but it didn't quite pan out.
They also had one of the best takes on Clayface I've ever seen (ok, so it's Two-Face's dynamic when they were unable to use Two-Face, but even so, it felt somehow better than that to me).
 

Exocet

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Dec 3, 2008
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For basically an hour after the movie, I was arguing humans were the bad guys, and the aliens were just making a first contact, which obviously fails.

Every part of the movie basically emphasizes on humans making rash decisions devoid of any thought, and the aliens respond to what they perceive as threats with neutralization of the threat, down to the ship's component.
Hell, even in the highway scene, with the metal ball thing, the aliens make sure casualties are at a strict minimum.

I like to think that within all this naval and military porn, there was a dash of inspiration, and critique of the human nature.
 

aceman67

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Moviebob, I just got back from watching Battleship, and I have to say, You're partially wrong.

Yes, the movie wasn't good, the acting was campy, the military bravado was a little on the heavy side, and the tie ins with the board game were corny, but it in no way did the movie "Suck".

There are far worse movies out there, and this isn't really one of them.

Movies like the Second Ghost Rider, and all the Twilight movies suck.

This was what I would call a Popcorn movie. One you see to be entertained, and I was just that: Entertained.

I laughed at the funny parts and the scenes where they showed real WWII navy vets (My grandfather served in the Pacific Theater, flying Hellcats off of the USS Bon Homme Richard), I was filled with pride (as any family who has military lineage should).

Could it have been better? Yes.

Was it bad? No. Like I said, its entertaining. Well worth my price of admission.

But damn... that scene where they Drifted the Mighty Mo, that was awesome.
 

Nexxis

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I would've seen the movie just to see someone say "You sunk my battleship" or some version of it. Just to have that nostalgia cause I LOVED the game as a kid.
DaveSull said:
They kind of say the line. One of the old veterans that shows up at the end yells "they are not going to sink this battleship".
I thought it was funny that they played with people's expectations.
That's good enough I guess. It just doesn't have the same feeling to it.
 

TornadoADV

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Apr 10, 2009
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This movie was great for what it is. I didn't go in expecting oscar material or anything, just a fun way to spend a Saturday evening and I was pleasently entertained. Kinda a bummer Big Mo' didn't get to fire her non 16-inch cannons.
 

Mangod

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Feb 20, 2011
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Want a good Battleship movie? Make a dramatization of the Battle of Midway.
 

Madara XIII

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Qitz said:
Battleship would have been 10,000X better if the bad guys were actually giant red pins that had to strike each other a specific number of times to make them exploderate.

At least then it would be funny.
And then we could hear Liam Neeson yell "YOU SUNK MY BATTLESHIP"
Dammit why didn't they say that!?!
 

DragynFyre

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Apr 22, 2011
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Its funny because after watching this review, I'm going to see The Avengers for the third time B)

Good review Bob. I understand what you mean at the beginning about secretly rooting for it to work. I could use a little surprise like that although then we'd have to deal with stuff like "Monopoly: The Movie" and "Snakes and Ladders: The Movie". Can't say a "Clue" movie isn't feasible. Also surprised about the Rhianna bit.
 

Vault Citizen

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I was really looking forward to this movie until a friend of mine saw it and told me how bad it was. I was hoping that the movie would be made with the same design philosophy as that of the people who made the A-Team.
 

Taunta

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Dec 17, 2010
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Crazy Zaul said:
'No such thing as a bad idea for a movie'?

Challenge accepted.

Megan Fox stars as a 90 year old man who is looking for his teddy bear which he lost in 1958. It is vital he finds it because Lionel Ritchie appeared to him a dream and told him that all along the bear had a magic compass which points to the location of Atlantis, inside its belly. After visiting his childhood home in an attempt to trigger his memory fails, he visits a wizard in Mongolia who enchants his wardrobe with the ability to travel through time. He goes to 1958 and... you know what, I'm bored of my own joke now, but it was gonna turn out Atlantis is on the moon.

But no 'good execution' could make that movie good.
I would actually pay to see that. I don't know what that says about me. But it sounds so bad it could be great.

OT: I knew this was gonna be bad as soon as soon as I saw the trailer in theaters. It starts out mentioning Hasbro, so I was spending the entire time trying to figure out what Hasbro thing it could be. Another G.I. Joe? Wtf is this? Then it finally said the title and I was just like "...What? I don't remember Battleship having aliens in it. Clearly they were playing a different game than I was."
 

Twinmill5000

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Nov 12, 2009
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The saddest truth of all, is that this movie probably took the highest budget of this year. The reason being is that 3d animators aren't easy to come by, well, good ones aren't, anyway. It costs alot to do a bad animation job, and the people who worked on this movie did a very good one.

And that leaves me at a loss. I don't know whether to be angry that people just don't get it, just don't see the art in it, and just don't look at art the same way anyone whose pirated 3DS Max would,

or sad.

Sad that the, for a tiny bit of extra money, they could have had a story that was a thousand times better and more well executed, that would not only compliment the scenery, but actually might make a good movie.
 

Bribase

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Nov 30, 2010
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I love Bob's reviews. Even when he's tearing apart what is clearly a forgettable cash-in piece of crap he leaves you with something to mull over.