Tag Archives: film review

Pacific Rim – Review

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Pacific Rim Poster!

Two weeks ago I got the chance to be treated to a showing of Pacific Rim at the Odeon Kilmarnock.  It has taken me some time to get around to posting this review of the film basically because I have been mired in the shallows of the summer school holidays, birthdays, house guests and other things which have slowed me right down on non-essentials (see I do this blogging lark out of love not money!).  But now here we are and the film is still very much on at the cinema so its still relevant.  A full 3D experience in a modern and this time fully functioning cinema (my experience last year with Dredd was interrupted by technical problems in the same cinema)…how was it?

As normal I tried to avoid trailers, adverts and especially reviews of the movie before going and in this I was successful.  Aside from a TV spot and the basic idea I knew nothing and went into it with an open mind.  A mind that was frankly very excited to see the film since I really like giant robots, giant monsters and the whole anime roots and premise of Pacific Rim.  I also really like the films of Guillermo del Toro too and Hellboy as well.  So my mind was looking for comparisons for Pacific Rim and while some people have used Transformers and the 1990’s version of Godzilla they are wrong the true father of Pacific Rim is the seminal Robot Jox from the 1980’s (which you should watch if you like mecha) and it delivered big style.

The giant robots and the monsters were superbly rendered on screen and the action set pieces were at times really tense and nail biting too.  Characters are often a let down in summer blockbusters but not in this case as the cast played off each other brilliantly.  From the names of the ‘Jagers’ to the names of the pilots there was a tongue in cheek humour.  The film had heart and drive while dropping the nod to its source material.  At no point in the cinema did I feel bored or did my attention wander from the screen and while you could have written the ending on a postcard and mailed it from minute one of the performance it did not matter.  In short it is a very good film in its own right before you get to the genre and in terms of the genre it is one of the finest of its kind ever filmed.  Go and see it!

In terms of wargaming there is plenty of scope for giant robots in scales such as 15mm with 1/100th and 1/72nd plastic kits…heck even a few 1/60th if you want really big.  Gives me ideas!

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Pacific Rim Movie book and Pacific Rim Year Zero book

Finally I got a package this morning ordered just after seeing the movie containing the two books that go along with the Pacific Rim film.  Excellent!  Once time allows I will read them and hopefully post a wee look at each of them.

Go see the film!

GBS

Despicable Me 2 – Early Screening!

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The Thinker, the Poet and the Warrior enjoy a treat!

Last Saturday I took the family to Ayr to see an advance screening of the brand new animated movie Despicable Me 2.  A week before the actual release I saw a chance for an early summer treat and took it.  I expected the cinema to be full as it was only going to be shown twice for one day.  But in reality it was nearly empty…perhaps the frankly insane pricing of the tickets put people off.  Let’s just say I could have bought nearly a dozen copies of the first film on DVD for the same price (or a couple of hundred 15mm miniatures).  Note this was a standard price, not inflated for the advance screenings.  So how was the film?

Actually it was really, really good.  I enjoyed the first Despicable Me movie a lot and this one continued the story and the level of fun and comedy with no let up.  It reminded me a lot of a 1970’s James Bond film with the gadgets, gags and honesty that is missing from such live action films now.  In fact the trailer for the upcoming Monsters University made me think of an 1980’s Police Academy type film.  Perhaps its a pattern…

If you enjoyed the first one or you have small children and can stand the price then its well worth seeing, five stars!

GBS

p.s. click on the links in this post.  Both official websites have a lot of them and my children enjoyed looking at them both.

Highlander the Search for Vengeance – Review

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Its been a while since my last review of any film or especially my second great love (after wargaming and well my wife, so make it third great love!) anime from the far east.  So last night I perused my pile of unwatched anime and foreign language films on DVD and selected one.  You might remember I picked up a pile in HMW back in February this year and only now are they reaching the top of the list to watch in the free time I have.  I had planned on keeping Highlander the Search for Vengeance for watching with a friend but Friday night found me alone after being ditched by all and the sundry too; so mate less watching alone it was!  So was it any good?

Well yes I enjoyed it but it has little resemblance to the seminal film of the 1980’s from which it takes its name.  Its Japanese through and through and made by Yoshiaki Kawajiri of whom I am a big fan but its far from the best anime out there.  The story is fairly thin concerning Colin MacLeod and his quest for vengeance against Roman general Marcus Octavius.  Marcus kills Colin’s life love Moya in the 3rd century AD in Northern England and swearing revenge for this Colin is promptly killed by Marcus but lands up on Celtic holy ground where his immortal resurrection is witnessed by the ghost of a Celtic Seer, Amergan, who then accompanies Colin as he tracks Marcus through the next two millennia.  Colin fails again and again to kill Marcus and the narrative ends up in post-apocalypse New York for a cyberpunk showdown.  I will not spoil the ending.

The best things about this anime are firstly the voice acting which is spot on and secondly the flash back scenes to my beloved Scotland (it is Highlander after all) and to Rome and Japan during the Tokugawa period which are by far the best parts of the animation.  Yoshiaki Kawajiri delivers on his Fist of the North Star style with intense action, over muscled characters, busty women (no gravity in this world!) and so on.  It is far superior to the awful 1990’s Highlander TV series and as far as I know its canon.  I must also mention the music which is really good and sets the scene moving from the ancient world to the near future with ease.

What lets the whole anime down is the repetition of cliché and sequences.  In seems in places that the action set in the past was what the directors and animators wanted to do and the near future material was a ‘do we have to?’ bolt on later.  Its also not classic stagecraft with dialogue that will make you cringe in your seat.

Overall if you are a fan of Highlander at all then seek this out and watch it.  If you like sci-fi like I do then give it a try too.  If you liked  Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s other works then also see it.  For a few pounds give it a try!

It seems not just ‘there can be only one’, there can be many…

GBS

Star Trek into Darkness – Film Review

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See a big cardboard standee…I was there, I was!

I boldly went last Saturday night…to the cinema…to see Star Trek into Darkness.  My recent trips to the cinema have been a sad, sad disappointment really.  Poor equipment, over priced (very), lack luster films and a feeling of regret that I wasted thirty pounds and a rare evening off work on them.  But not this time!  Into Darkness has had mixed reviews which if you have not seen it you should NOT read.  I avoided every ruddy advert, critic and everything else as I really wanted to see this movie and did not want anything spoiling it.  So was it any good?

YES it was.  I really enjoyed it.  The plot was thin in places but hey for a blockbuster it was fine, the 3D effect actually WORKED (that is a first for me).  It was superbly shot and rendered and the action sequences were very good.  Star of the film no doubt was Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan, he was excellent as Sherlock and excellent again leaving the other actors way behind.  But for me it was the last thirty minutes of the movie that made it superb and not for anything you would expect.  I have always been a fan of Chris Foss the sci-fi artist and it seemed to me that the film lifted his view of the universe and plonked it down wholesale on the Earth of the future, cars, buildings, fire and rescue vehicles.  From art to a moving reality. Brilliant.

Should you go and see it.  If you want a good film for science fiction fans that is about more than the USS Enterprise then yes.  A die hard Star Trek fan…not so sure.

GBS

Ray Harryhausen dies aged 92

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Jason and the Argonauts  Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Clash of the Titans to name a few famous ones.  All films made fantastic by the stop motion work of Ray Harryhausen who died peacefully yesterday.

Harryhausen was a legend among fantasy and science fiction movie fans and I see at least five of his films a year during festive or other holidays.  In fact I know some of them off by heart.  What makes it even more sad is that his good friend Ray Bradbury died not that long ago.  An age really is ending.  Its going to be CGI over substance all the more.  Something akin to parts of the wargaming industry but that is not for now.

You Looking at me!

You can read a full obituary here and check out the clip above.  Its old, its creaky but man it’s still awesome!

GBS

North Korea – Spend an Hour with this Travel Documentary

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Following the BBC’s airing of an undercover report from North Korea last night I decided I was interested enough to look around and find out more.  Time is limited for me (when is it not!) as Salute 2013 is only a few days away now but I took an hour and found a really great video on YouTube by a film maker called ‘Etherium Sky’.  This film maker has produced an excellent, actually better than the BBC’s efforts, travel documentary of his own trip to North Korea.  I recommend that if you have any interest in what is likely to be the most secretive and paranoid nation on earth that you watch it.  It is well worth an hour of your time.

Leaving aside the ongoing and seemingly constant threats of military action and possible thermonuclear attack upon South Korea and other nations by the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) the documentary was fascinating to me.  I am a big, big fan of the works of George Orwell and to see a state that exists in close to what ‘1984’ describes was very interesting.  I will not spoil the documentary for you but a few interesting points:

  • Lack of Technology – The DPRK is almost medieval in many places.  A lot of the jobs and tasks in the video looked to me, as a student of history, the way Japan did in the 1400’s.  The typical person there has no technology of any kind on their person including a wrist watch or mobile phone.
  • Failing Electricity Grid –   It would be amusing if it was not so criminal but the power grid in the DPRK seemed to fail constantly plunging whole towns into darkness.  That is a society in touble, rule one for a modern civilisation…electricity.  You try living without it.
  • Grinding Poverty – You can find out about the famine that killed a million plus, of the food aid that China and other give the DPRK, but in watching this film you also see the hard manual labour most North Koreans must also put up with.  I don’t even think it was about full employment on farms or such just a lack of machines to achieve more with less labour.
  • Isolationism – As a pariah state North Koreans have NO information about the outside world and this is down right strange.  Never heard of the Beatles, not heard of Star Wars or seen The Eiffel Tower.  We know little about them but they really know nothing about us.
  • Child Actors – It is worth watching this film if only to see the section in the middle of it with a performance put on including dance routines, piano, violin, guitar and acting put on in PERFECTION by DPRK children aged about 4-5 years.  Yes, very young children.  Speaking as a father of three and having been to a dozen or more such performances of this age group..you can only get this level of perfection if the threat of failure is dire indeed for the kiddies.
  • Slight of Hand – A lot of the filming is out of the corner of a window or slyly from a coach or under the arm.  Why?  Well the regime wants you to see only what it wishes you to see.  Taken to the model village, the ideal factory, the perfect hospital and immaculate hotel but not the buildings next door or the stores with empty shelves.  It is awful to watch and so clueless to a modern audience from the West who are just not taken in by this attempt at slight of hand.  Indeed the idea of perfection for the regime is something from the 1970’s or 1980’s, all pre-digital.
  • The Military – Everywhere and everything.  In fact the only thing that seems to run well in North Korea.
  • The Glorious Leader Cult – Scary, scary stuff.  A mix of hacked down messianic religion and fairy tales about the current, previous and first glorious leader.  If the DPRK had any form of free media it would not be able to exist like this.  Some of the stories are really wild.
  • Ideological Failure –  The DPRK is a broken state its obvious to all watching this film.  The reasons for this are many but what interests me is the idea that extreme nations where dictatorship and military led societies ALL seem to fail; why is this?  Lack of investment, a slow down of growth and innovation, public sector meltdown for military spending and so on.  North Korea is like any number of such states in Africa ruled in much the same fashion or it can be compared to the Soviet Union of the 1990’s or the Argentina of the 1980’s.  As you will all know the more democratic a nation’s name is the less democratic it is likely to be indeed throw in a ‘democratic’ or ‘peoples’ or ‘republic’ and I will assure you the nation in question meets none of its own named qualities.

A pariah state.  A place not really of our world.  How long with North Korea remain this way…well in my opinion not as long as the glorious leader would like it to.  But then what do I know, what do any of us know.

GBS

Lockout 2012 – Film Review

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The French release movie poster in honour of Luc Besson

“I heard you were dead Snake.” ….. “Yeah, I get that a lot”

That classic line from Escape from New York really sums up Lockout.  I had a spare two hours early this morning and I had gotten Lockout a few of weeks ago so I thought I would give it a watch.  Is it a bad film?  No.  Is it a good film.  Not really.  Is it fun?  Well yes.  Let me elaborate.

Luc Besson is a great director who has made some awesome films (I am thinking Fifth Element especially) but I was surprised when I picked this film up and saw that what I assumed was a B-Movie was directed by him.  I was swayed already to give this near future movie a punt as I like Guy Pearce (Time Machine especially) and also Edward Jackson had said to me he liked it.  But when I saw the directors name that sold it.  I watched it without reading any reviews (something I have taken to doing to avoid being prejudice towards a film), but I will give you the plot first before moving on to my opinion on Lockout.

In 2079, CIA agent Snow (Guy Pearce) is arrested for the murder of undercover agent Frank Armstrong who had uncovered evidence of an agent selling state secrets about the space program. Secret Service director Scott Langral (Peter Stormare) threatens to have Snow incarcerated on the maximum security space penitentiary MS One where prisoners are kept in stasis for their sentence. Snow’s agent friend Harry Shaw (Lennie James) tries to locate Snow’s contact Mace who knows where Frank’s briefcase containing the secret information is hidden.

Meanwhile, Emilie Warnock, (Maggie Grace) daughter of US President Warnock, arrives at MS One to investigate claims that stasis might affect prisoners’ minds, leading to psychopathy and dementia. Hydell, a prisoner, is awakened for questioning, but manages to escape. He releases all of the prisoners and starts a riot, led by his brother Alex. Emilie and others are captured. Shaw convinces Langral to send Snow to rescue Emilie rather than risk her life in a siege. Snow is initially reluctant, but agrees after Shaw tells him that Mace is on MS One, and could help Snow prove his innocence. Snow secretly infiltrates MS One. Alex realizes Emilie is the President’s daughter and goes to secure her. Emilie manages to escape with her bodyguard Hock and hide in a secure room. A problem with the oxygen supply however causes Hock to commit suicide to give Emilie more time.

Snow breaks into the room and rescues Emilie. Snow changes Emilie’s hair to conceal her gender and appearance after the prison is alerted to her true identity, allowing them to walk through the prison population. They find Mace, but the stasis has given him dementia and made him incoherent. Snow and Emilie bring Mace with them as they attempt to reach the escape pod. Without the maintenance of the staff, the prison has begun to fall out of its orbit and crashes into the International Space Station. The collision causes a breach and Mace is killed. Snow brings Emilie to the pod but discovers it has only one seat, and that he has been sent there to die. He sends Emilie on her way, but she allows the pod to launch without her, believing that the remaining hostages will be otherwise killed. Hydell contacts Emilie and threatens the hostages unless she reveals her location. When she does so, he kills all of the hostages.

As Snow and Emilie flee, they discover evidence that the prisoners were being illegally used as test subjects. Alex finds the pair and captures Emilie after shooting Snow and leaving him for dead. When Alex learns that Hydell has killed all of the hostages, he beats Hydell and contacts the President threatening to allow Hydell and the prison population to rape Emilie if they are not released. The President refuses to allow a siege and risk Emilie, causing Langral to temporarily relieve him of his command. Langral orders the destruction of MS One. Hydell tries to rape Emilie as promised, but is stopped by Alex. Infuriated he stabs Alex to death. Emilie fights back and Hydell attempts to stab her, but he is incapacitated by Snow. Snow and Emilie flee from the prisoners and Hydell. Meanwhile Langral’s men plant a bomb on the prison. Snow and Emilie use space suits and jump from the ship as it detonates, destroying the prison. The suits allow the pair to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and land safely in New York City.

Snow is arrested. Emilie later realizes that Mace’s seemingly incoherent rambling was the location of and password needed to access Frank’s briefcase. Armed with the briefcase, Snow meets with Shaw. Shaw immediately unlocks it to see the evidence, but finds it empty. Snow notes that he had not given the unlock code to Shaw, and Shaw is revealed as the mole and arrested. Snow is released and his possessions returned, including a lighter given to him by Frank before his death. Snow finds a memory card containing the real secret information hidden within it. Emilie meets Snow and teases him, having learned his first name is Marion. The pair walk away together.

Lockout is a total B-Movie and it shows.  But its a roaring action adventure and a laugh too.  Its been panned by critics and it really went straight to DVD but I liked it.  Agent Snow simply WANTS to be Snake Plissken and takes on the same mantle that in the 1980’s all action heroes had.  Gruff, sarcastic, violent and full of one liners while smoking (when was the last time you saw that in a new movie!) Snow tries his best to channel Snake but never manages it.  Like the shade of a long dead hero he rattles along well enough dispatching the bad guys but never really clicking into place.  Not a reflection of Guy Pearce, he is a fine actor, but more on the movie itself.  Its brainless and lazily directed, it lacks pace and its set pieces are weak as dish water.  Luc Besson either does not care or did this on purpose (why, don’t ask me!).  When Pierce is not on screen the film drops several notches which tells you its a weak movie.  Some of the CGI effects are appallingly bad in places as well.

But!  Its well worth watching and it is free of all the crap that plagues a lot of genre films now.  This movie is out of place in the 21st century, it should be in the 1980’s.  If you want a popcorn film for a weekend that is alpha male to the hilt with a dash of science fiction then Lockout is for you.  If you are a wargamer it also has several set pieces which would work really well in USEME or HOF Fire-Team.  If you want real class go and get Escape from New York!

GBS

A haul of DVD’s for GBS

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Today was a good day for shopping.  I don’t mean the kind of shopping where I trail about after my good lady uttering the mantras of ‘that looks good’ and ‘your bum ain’t fat in that’ I mean the kind of shopping where circumstances provide a golden chance to acquire something you want at a great price and without hassle.  Well this happened to me today in Ayr at the local branch of doomed HMV store and also in the mail this morning.  Below you can see a picture of the haul.  Sorry about the lens flare but shrink wrapping does that.  I have listed the titles under the image with links to their IMDB pages if you want to learn more about them.

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Anime, World Cinema and Bargain Bin gold!

This lot cost me just over thirty five pounds sterling including the postage on the Amazon order for Gazariki which was superb.  The others were discounted on the racks, discounted and binned and then with a 25% blue sticker sale on top it was like Christmas at two pounds a pop!

I hope to review each of these films and series in the next couple of months.  If anyone reading wants something put to the top of the que just email me or comment.

GBS

Biodome or Biodumb? Film Review

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My good friend Jim Brittain commented at the foot of my recent review of the ‘film’ Battleship (2012) about a flick he thought even worse.  A movie named Biodome starring Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin from 1996.  Well I am up for a challenge and it makes a fine break from work to watch terrible films so once my copy arrived by digital file I set about watching Biodome.  I did this before reading any of the online reviews so that I would have my own opinion.

The online reviews range from bad to really bad to apocalyptic atrocious.  So no bonuses there, turns out it really is universally loathed by the film community.  But what did I think?

I would say first off that this is a ‘buddy’ or a ‘stoner’ film and that should count for something such as I am sure that teens of the time and those of a more challenged intellectual view now would enjoy this movie.  Its a slapstick, its cruel and its slow too; made for those who are in the mood for such things.  I was a teen when this film came out but I did not see it then.  The plot is fairly simple, two losers (Shore and Baldwin) are dumped by their airhead enviro-saving girlfriends which forces to them to go to the site of the Biodome project.  Biodome is a sealed environment which will see four scientists spend a year inside it living with nature.  This sort of stuff was big in the 1990’s.  Of course those meant to go inside do not and the two losers do instead.  Hilarity ensues yes? ….well…no.

The journey to the Biodome is a mini road trip that just makes you loath the two main characters.  Especially Pauly Shore as he is either a poorer actor than Baldwin in that he cannot act ‘stupid enough’ or his character is just a manipulative weasel who effectively goads and tortures his friend while the two of them do nothing but spout crap constantly.    Once they are trapped in the Biodome with the four true scientists for the year long experiment (including Kylie Minogue in one of her ‘wilderness years’ roles, she also dated Shore for a while) one of the scientists describes the two loses as ‘Generation X Road Kill on the Superhighway of Tomorrow’ and that sort of sums them up.   Being stuck in the Biodomee sees the two losers torture each other and the scientists and also try a bit of ‘sexual assault’ for fun.  They hear nothing, they remember nothing, they respect nothing and no one; they are cretins.  None of the gags they carry out in the dome are funny, they are just cruel and pointless.  An example being the insect room where very endangered species are being bred to increase their numbers…upon hearing this the two losers trash the room and effectively kill those species.  They then set up a giant sheet of fly paper and actually kill every insect and bird in the dome.

Scroll on a bit and the losers escape the dome and then invite all their idiotic friends into it for a giant party.  The dome is wreaked and the financier of the dome blames the scientists while the two losers watch and giggle!  But of course they then change their minds and gaining not only fifty points on their IQ’s but also ten years knowledge in various disciplines they then lock themselves in the dome and repair it!  Total guff.  They then save it from the lead scientist who has gone mad.  More guff.  The film ends with them having learned nothing at all and driving with their girlfriends into what looks like a nuclear power plant.  I can only assume they then blow up the world.

Rose McGowan is in this film but sadly (or lucky for her) the editing of her scene cuts out her lines so she has no speaking part despite opening her mouth a couple of times!

Summing up the acting the film.  Its poor but not terrible.  Pauly Shore is the weak link really, laughing at his own script and sometimes looking at the camera too.  So in effect the film is rubbish and it shows.  They spent fifteen million dollars making it, planting that in terms of trees would have helped the planet more.  The message of the film overall behind the crass crud is about saving the planet and this made me laugh more than all the planned gags.  If these two losers represent the common man then this globe is truly ‘boned dude and lost buddy’.

Don’t lose brain cells watching this rubbish.  Thanks Jim!

GBS

BattleShip Movie Review

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From Indian Cinema and why not….

Sorry everyone…I know you want me to keep on creating more wargaming content but I thought I would take a Sunday afternoon to watch a film and put a review of it up here.  I like movies, I like science fiction a lot, so it stands I would like a big budget Hollywood title along those lines.  Plus I own the game its based on and my three sons enjoy playing it.  But….

Ha,Ha,Ha…this is one of the worst films I have ever watched!  It is has one, yes, one plus point.  The CGI special effects are superb, really well done and the only thing worth watching in the movie.  What of the rest of it?

I could say that making a film based on toys is a bad idea but it’s not.  Lots of good and average productions have come from Transformers, GI Joe, Thomas the Tank Engine and so on.  Making a film based on a board game though, aside from Jumanji I cannot think of any (not true, Mousetrap is a great comedy) is a bit more dubious.  Hasbro made it work with Transformers so why not Battleship?  Well here is a list of what I saw and thought based on watching it all the way through.

  • The plot is super thin.  Never mind physics or anything like that.  Talk to the stars so they send an invasion force to Earth to kills us all (an invasion force unable to steer their own ships incidentally).  They lose their ‘comms’ ship and need the messaging system here on Earth to send for extra troops…but they have tech that allows for crossing space REALLY FAST (light years in days) and they MUST have told their mates they were invading another planet!  They don’t need the primitive Human tech at bloody all!
  • The acting is ruddy awful from start to end.  Aside from Liam Neeson who despite changing his accent in every scene makes his dialogue work the rest of  the acting is turgid and at times actually ‘mentally handicapped’ too.  It reminded me of all things a 1980’s kids cartoon.  I will not quote examples but adding swearing would actually have helped.  Rihanna might not mime to her songs but she should have in this film she is not an actress and the real life navy veterans were just made to look foolish.
  • Formulaic at every step.  Painfully so.  The film is a like a path of falling domino’s or a tick list of idiocy.  The central character is a loud mouth looser and criminal (breaking and entering) but he is convinced to join the navy (why?) and is made an officer right away!  All the characters tell him he has skills and such but I never saw any and he never inspires any confidence as a lead.  He gets the girl which makes no sense.  He survives when he should not…and he smart mouths everyone (there is no respect for superiors in this mans navy!).  Best example.  When the alien ship surfaces he heads over to it on a launch and jumps onto it.  ‘Dude its like totally might be alien and shit’.  Rhianna ‘well I think so too duh’.  Then he turns to face his commander and shrugs…real professional.  Then as everyone says ‘bad idea dude, bad idea’ he touches a glyph and lost world style it begins the whole shooting match.   No First Contact trauma for this chump.  Then they make him a Captain!  A captain in a ship of cretins.  No First Contact trauma but at the sight of dead sailors…arrgh…panic!
  • The Aliens.  They looked great and that is it.  They were awesomely dense at all times, unable to use their own weapons and throwing away every advantage they had over Humanity.  With such bad acting, horrid lines and so on you want them to win but they cannot fly their ships or fight at all.   They seem to be psychotic pacifists…work that one out.  Is it flickering RED for kill it or GREEN for don’t kill it or is it RED with GREEN on it like a road bridge but we kill it anyway?
  • The Shield.  Yes, the aliens can generate a shield that forms a several mile high dome over a large area..kind of like a Battleship board game board limiting the pieces in play…  More awful dialogue follows…its not North Korea or some navy secret experiment….pathological avoidance of the bleeding obvious.  It cannot be Human in origin.  Oh the aliens are shooting at us…what do we do…oh no its like Battlestar Galactica none of our advance weapons work anymore…panic.  We had training and procedure for being shot at…what was it dude…I don’t know.   Oh, yeah its personal dude attack them Ok Corral style.  Plus we can confuse them with sunlight!
  • Sugar Coated Boak.   Boak is a Scottish word which means to be violently sick and it suits this movie.  I know Americans like to salute their flag and that is totally fine with me but this film takes it WAY too far.  It takes every heart on sleeve moment possible and wrings the life out of them while screaming ‘USA,USA’ over and over.  I am not American so I can’t say but it must have made people there cringe with embarrassment; it did for me over and over.  You can love your country, your navy, your service personnel without insulting them like Battleship did.  The final scene with the real life veterans was appalling.  If the characters from this film were real it would make me very scared that they had access to a handgun never mind cruise missiles and nuclear weapons too.
  • Putting the Board game in the Film.  Several scenes and events (tracking ocean movements, milk can projectiles etc) are put in for reference to the board game.  Nice touch, but it does not add anything except to confuse the thin plot further.
  • Final loss of Believability.  The USS Missouri is a 70 year old museum piece but that is ok we can take twenty geriatric former sailors and get her sailing again in hours with no prep and one hundredth of the needed crew.  These are real sailors and their dialogue is horrid!  Quick turn the battleship, the aliens cannot traverse their own weapon pods!  It gets worse…they beat the aliens with the ancient ship by dropping anchor and making one hundred thousand tons of steel skid in the water like a bloody touring car on a racetrack!

All in all its a terrible wooden movie which is so bad its actually funny.  It ends with a little scene after the credits which sealed it for me….Scottish Highlands…NO, totally wrong landscape, Scottish Barn…NO unlike any architecture you would see outside of Ohio, Scottish Workman…NO totally wrong kind of Asian van and equipment…if that is Scotland then I am an Admiral.  Sums up Battleship really..treats the audience like mugs.

In saying all this it makes me want to start a regular feature of reviewing bad or poor films that are in this or similar genres.  I get inspiration for wargaming from some strange places so both you lot reading this and me viewing might both learn something or at least have a chuckle in trying.

Seriously…wait for Battleship to be on free view television.  I did and it saved me a few pounds I would have regretted spending.

GBS