Battleship ★ ★

Its a hit and miss film 

Release Dates
Australia 12th April, 2012 UK 11th April, 2012 USA 18th May, 2012

Other Countries Release Dates

Hollywood is casting its net everywhere for film ideas these days.  Decades ago film studios only had books and imagination to draw upon when creating science fiction invasions of our planet. The 1951 film ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’, on our low tech black and white TV, without computer-animation technology, created a frightening vision of an alien invasion with only a lone alien and his robot.
           When the peaceful intergalactic emissary, Klaatu (Michael Rennie), is shot, his robot Gort vaporizes the surrounding weaponry.  The image of the robot’s glowing eye slot scanning a New York park was truly creepy.

Nowadays, moviemakers can pull ideas from not just books but TV shows, video games and, of course lately, board games and toys and execute them with breathtaking realism.  With the 'Transformers' franchise proving such a big hit, it makes perfect sense for Hasbro to pull out from the cupboard all its games and check their viability as a film.

The idea of creating a film from the unimaginative game of Battleship is intriguing.  How they insert the square coding calls into the film is actually clever.  And whilst clearly not aiming for a storyline they certainly hit a few marks with the action. 

Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is always in trouble, much to the consternation of his big brother and naval officer, Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård).  When Alex meets physiotherapist Samantha (Brooklyn Decker) he again ends up in strife by breaking into a min-mart in attempt to get her a snack .  Well young love does cause you to do stupid things.  The only answer according to his brother is to enlist in the Navy.

By the time he has moved up the navy ranks, he and Samantha want to marry but first he must ask the permission of her Father, Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson).  This permission asking is going to occur whilst on naval exercises off Hawaii.  Go figure on the timing.  But two things go wrong, Alex is in trouble again and Aliens pick that moment to invade the Earth.

The rest of the film is a version of ‘Transformer’s defending the Earth, except this time it is the U.S. and Japanese Navy, and Samantha and double amputee, Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales (Gregory Gadson), attempting to stop the aliens from signaling back to their home planet with directions to Earth for the rest of the invasion team.  Why they didn’t travel together is never explained.

We get a good look at the aliens, clad in Iron Man type spacesuits, as they chase Alex’s personnel—which includes superstar Rhianna in her first film role—around their ship.  The spaceships and aliens then play a battleship game of hit and miss in quite spectacular and watery action scenes. 

Director, Peter Berg, who is better known for his acting roles in ‘Friday Night Lights’, ‘Prime Suspect’ and ‘Chicago Hope’, is clearly a big fan of the Michael Bay whirly destructive robots theme.  He has tremendous fun with these scenes and, I must say, watching a Destroyer destroyed by a big metal whirring wheel thing was quite a treat. As harsh-critic-aged-nine pointed out, the ship went down the same as the Titanic.  So, for future reference, when steering a ship avoid icebergs and metal wheels with lots of sharp gears and orange flames.

If you want a thoughtful film with wonderful acting and a plausible plot, do not target this movie. It misses practically every time the actors open their mouths.  But if you want action, aliens and fun CGI destruction sequences, with no thinking in between, then ‘Battleship’ scores a direct hit.  I rate it a D2.  'D' for dumb script but dazzling effects and 2 for the actual star rating and quantity of credible scenes.  

P.S.  The Day the Earth Stood Still

Alien invasions films would be nothing today without all the whizz bang computer stuff but no matter what they throw at the screen, it can't compare to the dread I felt in the pit of my stomach when I saw that glowing eye slot of Robot Gort.  Keep in mind, I was probably seven at the time. Just for fun, here is the trailer for 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. 

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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Fans)★ ★★ ★ (Me) ★ ★

Release Dates:   Australia 5th January 2012
Other Countries


It's not so elementary
 

In Sherlock Holmes’ own words, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".

And this may also be true for the movie, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Getting to the truth of why you should or shouldn’t see it, is quite a difficult game of deduction.

Notice in one corner, we have Robert Downey JR (Sherlock Holmes), everybody’s favorite actor, the swaggering Iron Man hero himself. Also in the wonderful actor area is Jude Law (Dr. John Watson), considered one of Britain’s best actors. Alongside them, Noomi Rapace (Sim) of the Swedish Girl With The Dragon Tattoo role, captivating to watch. Of course, lets not forget Jared Harris (Professor Moriarty) of Mad Men fame and Stephen Fry (Mycroft Holmes) whom everyone loves.

Now swing your ever observant gaze to the Director, Guy Ritchie, who literally created a genre of UK gangster films with his hit the 1999, Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels made with a paltry one million dollars.

And hidden away, where most people wouldn’t notice them, is the production team of Joel Silver, (who has more than sixty films under his belt, including the Matrix trilogy),  Susan Downey (a prolific producer and Downey’s wife), and Lionel Wigram, (co-producer of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).

This is a dream team for big success and they have achieved it with the first Sherlock Holmes film, grossing over $516 Million. So your deduction, my dear friend, is that this movie would be a thrilling caper from start to finish. That, though, would depend on your powers of observation.

The story begins with the death of the Crown Prince of Austria. All is not as it seems, of course, and Holmes follows the slim clues to a gentleman’s club, where he is, supposedly, out with Watson on Watson's buck’s night. Here he meets the Gypsy fortune teller, Sim, who knows more than she is revealing in her card reading. It’s not giving too much away to share that Moriarty is behind everything dastardly. Suspecting this, Holmes and Watson follow Moriarty across Europe in order to discover and thwart his evil game plan. There is a tremendous amount of running and jumping, fighting, and gun exploding, much of it in slow motion, so we miss nothing. And there is much 'follow the clue' revelations, just like in the first film.

My husband, an avid fan of the first movie, found this one exhilarating. He inferred, quite rightly, that it was true to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Downey’s Sherlock Holmes is to say aloof, uncaring and a downright narcissist. Watson continues to be his able sidekick, who, despite being treated like a fool, still follows Holmes faithfully through all his adventures, even abandoning his wife on their honeymoon.

The movie is dark—and I mean darkly lit—which again my husband pointed out is true to the era, where it was candlelight all the way. Holmes slow motion think-through process for every physical clash, along with his and Moriarty’s word play, for me, ground proceedings to a yawning halt. Not so, for my Husband, who commented, this was true Holmes, a man of thought and words.

And yes, we did have a heated discussion, in the car, on the way home from the screening. For every move I made on the credibility of this Sherlock Holmes film, my husband had a counter argument.

So, in order to decide if you will enjoy Sherlock Holmes I can only offer this advice: You must reach your own conclusions. The evidence is there for both sides of the, is it a good movie, argument.

In this case, the truth may be that, whilst this movie was not for me, I feel that the probability is great that an enjoyable two hours is in the cards for fans of the original. And the last person with whom I would argue is Sherlock Holmes. He does play a good game at times.

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Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 -Twihard Fans ★ ★★ ★★ Me ★ ★

What hasn’t been written already about Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1? 

Instead of repeating everyone else, I am going to write in support of the Twihard fans even though I didn’t like the movie.  And no, I haven’t gone mad or plummeted in my cinema viewing expectations.

There are already a million reviews out there, as the second last chapter of the Twilight series drops into cinemas  with a thud louder than a werewolf knocking over a vampire.  So, this isn’t going to be an outline of the story  other than to say, there are vampires, werewolves and all is not well in the land of Twilight despite a lovely wedding.  If you don’t know the story of Twilight, then I presume you don’t have a computer or a Television and, therefore, wouldn’t even be reading this blog.  It’s a phenomenon and that is the supernatural truth of it.  Either you love the franchise or you don’t get it.  I’m not sure if there is much of an in-between.

Even poor reviews from the critics, the film receiving only 24% at Rotten Tomatoes—the lowest critic rating of all the Twilight films—won’t keep fans away.  One critic probably summed the movie up best with, ‘Slow, joyless, and loaded with unintentionally humorous moments, Breaking Dawn Part 1 may satisfy the Twilight faithful, but it's strictly for fans of the franchise.’

Regardless of critics, there are millions of fans very happy to part with their money to watch Bella and Edward marry and consummate their extended relationship.  And don’t forget there’s the ‘I’ve seen all the other ones, so I have to see this’ camp, of which I am a member.

I’ll be glad when the last one comes out and I’ve finished my tour of duty.  It really does seem to have gone on forever.  While the characters have forever—being immortal and all—we normal human moviegoers only have a few hours to kill and we’re lucky to get that these days with all the other distractions.  The average moviegoer would not generally indulge Breaking Dawn’s excruciatingly drawn out scenes.  In fact, the average moviegoer would not indulge any of the Twilight movies. 

Yet, here we still have a box-office hit that isn’t very good.  And, I must say, it’s not surprising it is not good, the books weren’t very good either.  They, too, suffered from long drawn out passages and poor writing.  I read them out of curiosity and because everyone told me I should.  I’m a writer by day, so anything that is that big, I need to check out.  I didn’t learn anything from reading them, except that when you capture the audiences imagination, nothing else matters.

There’s another commentary on Breaking Dawn that begins with the idea that this film is a rip off, a cheap grab by studios to milk the franchise for all its worth.  Ker-ching.  Ker-ching.  And it probably is.  You know what, I am going to come out and say, I don’t blame the studio.  I don’t think many of the first weekend viewers of Breaking Dawn will be asking for their money back, either.  They know exactly what they are in for when they hand over their money and they received exactly that. 

I love my blockbusters but my favourites this year have been small movies, most people wouldn’t bother to see—Barney’s Version, Take Shelter, and We Need To Talk About Kevin.  They all had beautifully crafted scripts with complex characters, portrayed by arguably the leading actors in Hollywood.  But nobody would rush to see these offerings.  There’s no vampires, virgins or beautiful young creatures floating across the screen in these films, just thought provoking ideas that stay with you long after you leave the cinema.

I’m not a Twilight fan but I am a fan of the movie industry.  If the Twihards are willing to come out, and hand over their money instead of pirating the film, thus allowing the studios to make the wonderful, but less record-breaking movies, then I say ‘good on them’. 

To the Twihards I say, Breaking Dawn isn’t as bad as the critics make out.  Go, enjoy it—and yes, Taylor Lautner does take off his shirt—and I thank you for throwing yourself on the fangs of Edward in support of the movie industry.  You are doing a good thing. 5 Stars for you.  2 for me.

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