Battleship: as my grandmother is wont to say…
I’m not, despite what my friends, family, doctors and Rabbi say, a cretinous fool; I had already read reviews for the film, a film I had predetermined (by dint of the subject matter alone) was unlikely to be any good, but I watched it anyway. I watched it because sometimes the (strictly metaphorical) train-wreck is as interesting to watch and deconstruct as the cinematic masterpiece (examples of which include The Third Man, Nosferatu and Home Alones I & III). But occasionally even the metaphorical train-wreck is a horrendous, grisly mess, a breathtakingly source of sorrow which blights the lives of all who have any sense of empathy or humanity. Even that though can result in an investigation, the discoveries of which can prevent further such catastrophes. This is not the case with the ruinously terrible Battleship, which revels in its sub-mediocrity.
There are no mistakes in this film which are even remotely new or interesting, but not because those problems that Battleship has are minor missteps that befall many if not most productions. Instead they stem from the air of laziness which pervades every scene and every aspect of every scene. The script bounces between the forced banter of insipid bonhomie and leaden jingoistic bullshit of a calibre which can only appeal to Americans who masturbate under their Red, White and Blue duvets to pictures of the Statue of Liberty whilst a slow-jazz version of the Star-Spangled Banner plays languidly into the room. Some of these moments are, in fairness, unintentionally funny… Although only inasmuch as the psychopathetic (sic) juxtaposition of mourning for lost friends and brothers to an alien invasion and the next swell of patriotic rock music sound-tracking shots of big, phallic guns is absurdly macabre.
Liam Neeson continues his run of uninspiringly workman-like performances which appear to bore even him and is still the second most convincing actor in the entire film. Not that he’s really playing a character as such; no-one in Battleship is more than an extremely slight collection of stock elements in service to a plot lifted from a “how not to” guide for screenwriters. Alexander Skarsgård gives the best performance in the film, just so you know, and he manages to disguise the inadequacies of the dialogue he’s given him. Rhianna might be a good actor too, if she ever gets a real part to play… It is, as my grandmother is wont to say, “a piece of shit dressed up in court clothes.” Sage words from a woman who once bottled a naval officer for, and I quote, “lookin’ at [her] funny.” Simpler times… Simpler times with much better films…
