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| Let the stupidity wash over you like painful shards of glass riding the waves of a sonic boom... |
2.) The alien planet is called "Planet G" (later on, they say the actual name of the system, but I forget what it is). As it is, it sounds totally ghetto to me. I imagine a planet full of aliens running around saying "what up, G?"
3.) "If there is intelligent life out there and they come here, it's going to be like Columbus and the Indians...only we're the Indians." This line makes it sound like Columbus single-handedly wiped out the native Americans, all at once.
4.) So, apparently, communications transmissions to other planets are not invisible radio/infrared/Voip/photon/tachyon/quantum transmissions of any kind, but a huge, visible laser beam that blasts across space and zaps "Planet G." No wonder they came to kick our butts.
5.) The main character's initial advances toward the love interest revolve around...a chicken burrito. The man even goes to jail just so he can give his true love...a chicken burrito. All this trouble for a chicken burrito? Seriously?!
6.) Soccer game scene. They spent so much film on the set-up, the dramatic slow-motion, and inspiring feel-good moment. And then...the guy misses. Probably the worst kick in soccer history, fictional or otherwise.
7.) So, in a manner of days, "Planet G" (ugh) receives the signal and sends out its ships to kick Earth's butt. Sending an interstellar signal to another planet with modern technology would take years, if not decades or even centuries, to reach any planet that's light years away (a common observation for those who yearn for hard sci-fi, whereas average viewers won't care, but still...). One could also complain about the concept of alien ships zipping to Earth within a manner of days, but we can safely assume that their technology allows for circumventing, bending, or outright breaking the laws of relativity.
8.) Rihanna...why is she here?
9.) When the RIMPAC exercises commence, Hopper is shown pacing around the bridge, talking about how they're not there to learn, how they're just there to kick every one else's butt...probably the worst sense of professionalism any military person could exhibit, on screen or off. The man's arrogance and attitude tends to push the limits of what's believable for a military role. Shouldn't basic training have broken this guy in? Why didn't he go through basic training in this film? Ugh, this is worse than "The Hurt Locker."
10.) As the alien ships race toward Earth, the screen clearly shows them passing Jupiter, Mars, etc all in real-time. Considering it takes radio (much less radar or anything else) so many minutes to reach any stellar body in our solar system (I believe it's 40 minutes to call Mars), there's no way a ground station could track anything beyond the Moon in real time. In fact, by the time the ground station picked up anything in the vicinity of Mars, the ships could have already landed.
11.) Sound in space...last time I checked, it's still scientifically impossible. No air means no sound waves. Thus, alien ships shouldn't be going "zzzrrrrooooommmmmm!!!"
12.) "What is NASA present in this room for?" Dumbest question ever.
13.) "You're saying that we sent out an alien signal...and we got a response..." It's funny how that works.
14.) Why is it that, anytime something crashes that's obviously an alien ship, everybody assumes it's something else? No, it's not cargo/satellite/Chinese ship! Does it look like one?
15.) Fighter plane ramming into the wall of the big giant energy dome...seriously, if you saw a giant energy wall closing, would you just fly into it?
16.) So, first a space is explicitly sealed off, trapping so many battleships in with so many alien ships. The battleship fires, then the alien ship makes its move. Battleship fires, alien ship makes its move. This game seems rather familiar...
17.) What's up with the bomb that first blows everyone away, then sucks them in for a moment, then blows them away again? Are we in "The Matrix" or something?
18.) Hopper's finally in charge. He looks around at everyone blankly. In all this time, the alien ships could have blown all these fools away.
19.) Hopper's first command develops quite the overt Captain Ahab complex. Once again, not terribly realistic for a military man.
20.) So this alien ship starts launching a bunch of stuff. And the one soldier's response is "what is that sh*t?!" How eloquent. It made me laugh.
21.) Ah, another one of those moments where something dangerous is coming, and the guy just stands there and looks at the incoming thing. I swear, every disaster movie has a moment like this.
22.) The spinning spiny wheels of death roll through military bases and a major highway. It's really cool! However...it reminds me so much of "The Langoliers." You know, the gaudy Stephen King miniseries.
23.) As the Langolier ball things roll around, it winds up tearing up a ball field, and one of the little league players just stands there and stares at it. Stupid kid...
24.) How did these Hawaiian cops find the lady and the amputee guy on the mountain? Especially since he just said that all the roads and electronic stuff was blown up?
25.) So these two people had the choice to leave the mountain, but they chose to continue walking. The jeep was right there; they could have driven up the hill. Duh!
26.) So, the one lady reveals that her daddy believed in aliens and he knew that they'd come. Seriously, Liam Neeson? The admiral? The man who's supposed to be a realist? Really?
27.) Is it me, or do the alien suits resemble a futuristic version of the Big Daddy from "Bioshock"?
28.) ...or, the suits could be rip-offs of "Halo."
29.) "I've got a bad feeling about this." Come on, this is obviously a "Star Wars" reference. Lucas ruined the line already! Stop it!!
30.) "Like 'we're going to need a new planet' bad feeling." Wow. Best line since the one in "Jaws," when the guy says "We're going to need a bigger boat." For that matter, that line would have been awesome in this film.
31.) So the big guy stands there and decides to have a face-off with the big scary alien. Fight ensues. Granted he stopped the alien from touching something that looked dangerous, facing the thing alone seemed foolish.
32.) For that matter, why are these aliens on the ship? If they wanted to destroy all the random machines and stuff, couldn't they just blow the whole ship up, like they did the others?
33.) So the lone alien got shot at point-blank range by a battleship's gun. Nice. Problem is, the star of the show was pretty darn close to it too. Wouldn't the blast have killed him too?
34.) "We got to get off this mountain." What the? That's not what these fools on the mountain decided before! They should have taken the jeep! What fuitcakes...
35.) Oh, apparently, the jeep is right there. Never mind it took forever for them to get up the mountain and see the wreckage; next scene, the jeep's right there.
36.) So, the aliens are vulnerable to...sunlight. Uh huh. Probably the most unconvincing weakness since the aliens in "Signs," which melted in water. I expected the aliens to melt in sunlight; that would have been hilarious. Turns out, they're just sensitive to the light, and wear shades all the time.
37.) Hopper once again proves his ignorance by bashing the "Art of War."
38.) In another scene that simulates the original Battleship game, the battleships in the movie are rendered blind at night, and have to use buoys to form a grid and search for patterns. That's pretty slick how they squeezed that in there.
39.) These aliens sure weren't smart to come to our solar system, with its sunlight and all, with windows that can break. It's amazing how the snipers win the day just by breaking all the ship's windows.
40.) When the Langolier ball thing is ripping through the ship, the one guy struggles with the door as the thing bears down on him (he already expressed some stupidity by watching it blast through the door, all doe-eyed). Then Rihanna jumps out from a side passage and rescues him. Uhh, why didn't he just go through the side passage in the first place, instead of fudging with the door?
41.) When the ship goes vertical, Hopper and the Japanese dude scale the side of it with their bare hands. What, do they have hands like Spiderman? They should be sliding to their deaths!
42.) None of the characters believed that the USS Missouri could be used in combat again. You know what: I don't either. Even with a crew of 80-year-old veterans running the thing.
43.) Yeah, the veterans running the war. With all due respect to the veterans, these scenes strain so much believability, it's hilarious.
44.) Despite the heroism and ingenuity of launching a 70-year-old vessel to war against these aliens, if the aliens caused this much damage to modern warships, what chance does the Missouri have, seriously? Especially against the mother ship?
45.) So Hopper makes the ship do this fancy 90-degree turn with the anchor. Pretty slick, but I doubt the ship could have moved that intensely, much less sustained the strain caused by the anchor's sharp tug.
46.) Wow, the Missouri must have some awesome ammunition in its cannons. It manages to take out the aliens way better than all the modern battleships combined.
47.) With all due respect to the amputees of the world, I seriously doubt the amputee in the film could lay the smackdown on these aliens like he does here.
48.) There are a bunch of aliens around the satellite array, but only one of them bothers to fight the humans. Granted that the rest were busy setting up the "ET phone home" signal, it's kinda silly that they let their one buddy get beat up by an amputee and a geek without any backup. Come on, how many aliens does it take to screw a light bulb?
49.) These aliens are some ugly mothers...they look like a cross between a guy with a goatee and Bigfoot.
50.) Super-duper ammo strikes again! One shell takes out the entire area where the satellite array is. That's awesome stuff, man.
51.) They had Rihanna on the cast, but she couldn't be contracted or something to make a theme song for the film? Bummer. I mean, I like the old rock tunes and all, but it seems like it's all overplayed in movies these days. Every other movie plays AC/DC, CCR, and all these other twenty-year-old rock bands all the time, I swear (or maybe I just have "Iron Man" to blame for this). Can't they at least move on with modern bands?
52.) Biggest number-one complaint I have: why do the aliens bother to target only hostile units? In every other alien invasion movie, whether it be "ID4," "War of the Worlds," or even crap like "Skyline," the aliens always slaughter humans and destroy cities indiscriminately. In "Battleship," they just don't have their heart in total conquest; they react defensively and only attack when they're being attacked (despite the fact that they instigated the attack to begin with). One could argue that this is because they're just a scouting party and not a full-blown invasion force. If so, then this is even more dumb, because the scouting party caused so much mass destruction that they drew attention to themselves and doomed themselves from the start (they even let elderly veterans and an amputee defeat them). A proper reconnaissance would have been discreet. As it is, however, this entire invasion is specifically set up to incorporate the dynamics of the original "Battleship" board game into the story, and to keep things at a safe feel-good PG-13 level. Thus, it is contrived.
Worst alien invasion ever! :p
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