Battleship (2012) Film 35/50

My sister and I have been excited to see this movie since its release date was first announced as being the same week as her birthday. Plus, it has everything a Birthday Movie should have: references to a classic Hasbro game, an 8-foot tall Swedish God trying his best to convince us all he is related to Taylor Kitsch, Lieutenant Tim Riggins with a haircut, some lady named Rihanna, aliens, and the most awesome video conference call ever.

But let's properly digest this one, as it is truly deserving.

Before you continue, you should know you're pretty much going to hear it all. So if you want to be at all surprised (and possibly laugh harder at the film that way), I wouldn't continue reading until after seeing this movie. Consider yourself warned.

The film starts out with the basic premise of Contact (1997): a signal from Earth has reached an alien planet, and the aliens respond. But instead of sending digital blueprints for an amusement park drop-fall ride, these aliens show up with a fleet of five spaceships (you know, like the five pieces your opponent has in the Hasbro board game Battleship). A satellite in the Earth's atmosphere immediately sinks the aliens' communications craft using some impressive CGI, leaving the remaining four ships with the need to phone home à la Steven Spielberg's ET. If only we had some heroes to save the day...

Cut to: Pearl Harbor. Both the location and the 2001 Michael Bay film. Alexander Skarsgård and his identical twin brother Taylor Kitsch are at a bar. Taylor falls for a very hungry blond gal craving a chicken burrito. He barely survives the process of trying to procure said burrito and wakes up the next morning in a tub full of ice with taser burns on his back and big brother forcing him to join the Navy. Just your average Sunday morning at the Kitsch household, if you ask me.

Inexplicably, the next scene cuts to the RIMPAC World Cup Soccer Finals 2012 where Skarsgård is goalie and Kitsch is sporting a new haircut. If there is anything about this movie that I hate, it is its decision to omit the scene where Kitsch washes and cuts his hair prior to this moment. Not cool, Peter Berg. The purpose of the scene: to make everyone see what a total loser Taylor Kitsch's character is. The scene succeeds. Rihanna hates him. Japan wins the match.

Back to the Pearl Harbor romance between Kitsch and Burrito Girl: turns out her daddy is Admiral Liam Neeson, and Kitsch is going to ask his permission to marry his daughter. Surely, the Admiral will say yes. Especially when Kitsch shows up obnoxiously late to the RIMPAC World Cup awards ceremony. At least he has his uber-perfect brother who is certain to survive the length of the film.

But before Kitsch has a chance to speak with Neeson, he gets into a bathroom brawl with the Japanese captain who beat him at soccer. Because soccer is important. Very, very important. The fight pretty much results in a dishonorable discharge for Kitsch, but everyone thinks it's best to let him stay in the Navy for the RIMPAC exercises before making that official. It's almost like they know what's about to happen next.

Alien invasion!

Right...back to the four stranded alien ships. Since they can no longer call home on their own dime, the aliens decide to use the Earth-bound signal that contacted them in the first place. Guess where that's located. Oh right. Hawaii.

Cal the Hawaiian supernerd, who helped to contact the aliens in the first place, is taken completely by surprise when the aliens show up on Earth's doorstep. He gets a video call from the Love Actually headmaster asking him to confirm the arrival of the alien ships. Turns out this call is actually a video conference call between Cal and everyone on the planet who would ever be contacted in the event of an alien invasion. It is awesome. Enjoy it. Even if it is only a matter of ten to fifteen seconds of pure joy.

Meanwhile, the aliens arrive in Hawaii just as the Navy gets all its ships placed on the board and their red and white pegs ready to play. Although they have lost the ability for long-distance phone calls, the aliens do have the technology to create a force-field dome around the Hawaiian islands--a dome that conveniently locks Admiral Neeson and his aircraft carrier outside. No game for you today, Liam.

And so begins the battle. The epic battle between a small fleet of American and Japanese ships and the massively CGI-ed alien spacecraft. It is immediately clear to everyone watching that the alien technology is far-superior to anything the Planet Earth can produce. The aliens quickly take out the Japanese destroyer by blasting it to bits with peg-shaped torpedos, leaving only two American destroyers left to save the world. No beloved characters are killed at this time (and even everyone's favorite Japanese captain miraculously manages to survive his ship's explosive end), and the so the battle rages on.

But then! The USS Sampson, under the command of Nordic God Skarsgård, is obliterated. Although we have learned nothing about Skarsgård's character other than the fact that he is 8-feet tall and practically perfect in every way, we pretend to be brokenhearted for his brother. Without proper time to grieve the loss of his big bro, Kitsch discovers that he is now the senior member of the only remaining ship, the USS John Paul Jones. Congrats on the promotion, Captain Kitsch.

Because the aliens have a moral code (illustrated by first-person perspective shots where green equals organic/good and red equals machine/destroy-at-all-cost), they stop fighting the mourning Kitsch ship and resume their quest to phone home. They will most likely regret this decision to not destroy the USS John Paul Jones when they had the chance.

The Jones, instead of driving head-on into the alien spaceships (which was, very briefly, the best plan of action they had to offer), picks up survivors from the Japanese wreckage. With the Japanese Captain Nagata on board, Kitsch decides to rely heavily on Nagata's leadership in a glimmer of self-awareness for the absolute mess he has become. Without working radar, Nagata teaches Kitsch how to use the tsunami buoy system surrounding the Hawaiian islands as means for tracking water displaced by the alien ships. The digital display turns into a large grid marked with familiar numbers and letters resembling...yes, a Hasbro Battleship game grid.

As these massive attacks take place at sea, Burrito Girl is back home working her day job as a physical therapist. While her boyfriend and wannabe fiancé is learning about buoys, she's taking a hike on a mountain with her new patient Mick ("But Lieutenant Mick, you ain't got no legs!"). They are warned to head back down the mountain by some rangers in a scene that basically plays out like this:

RANGER: We don't know what's going on since we've lost contact with the outside world, but the word "alien" is being thrown around. A lot.
BURRITO GIRL: What the hell are you talking about?
LIEUTENANT MICK: I just want to be a soldier, but I have no legs. Why won't you all just leave me alone!
RANGER: No, really. Go back down the mountain now! Or I'll kill you both myself. Don't think I won't.
BURRITO GIRL: I don't understand you. I'm just a girl.
RANGER: Go! Now! And no, I will not give you and your legless friend a ride. Now get walking already. Scoot!

The rangers drive off.

MICK: Forget going down the mountain. I want to see where they went.
BURRITO GIRL: Don't leave me here alone! I'm a girl!

They follow the path the rangers drove down only to discover the aliens have destroyed the rangers' jeeps. All the passengers are dead. Good thing that ranger was such an ass and refused to give them a ride.

Re-enter Cal. He meets up with Mick and the Burrito Girl just in time to explain that the radio-silence everyone is currently experiencing can be worked around if he can get something out of his alien-infested trailer. Mick tells him to go get it. He does. This is a very exciting moment for no one.

Back on the USS John Paul Jones, Kitsch has mastered the art of distinguishing bright red buoy lights from not-as-bright red buoy lights. Nagata is in charge of yelling "Fire!" Rihanna is in charge of the trigger. And Friday Night Lights' Jesse "Landry" Plemons has the honor of reporting back with "miss" on the first two strike attempts. Because "third time's the charm" is the motto for this plot sequence, the humans manage to destroy not one, but TWO alien ships on the next attack. A third ship approaches but navigates the buoy system with such randomness that even Kitsch can see they are dealing with an intelligent life-form here. Instead of risking more "misses" (they do have a limited supply of red and white pegs, after all), Kitsch gets a brilliant idea. They will use the Hawaiian coastline and sunrise for a sneak attack. We know it succeeds when Rihanna dryly delivers the line, "Mahalo, mother-f..." (cue deafening explosions in lieu of expletives). She gets the best lines.

But there are still aliens on the island trying to call home! And thanks to Cal's radio-silence-breaking equipment, Burrito Girl is able to make a quick call to Kitsch that lets him know what the aliens are up to. As he and the Jones make their way over to stop ET from phoning home, they run into the force-field-setting alien craft. Turns out, it can move! And it's armed. The Jones does not survive. The movie channels the scene from Titanic (1997) where Kate and Leo hold on to the ship until the absolute last moment. Kitsch plays Leo to Nagata's Kate. But they must not have seen Titanic, because they jump instead of holding on. Crazy kids. Somehow they make it to the lifeboats with Rihanna and Landry.

So now they're out of boats (although, for those of you keeping track at home with your Battleship grids, you know the aliens still have one craft while the humans should have two). To his surviving crew, Kitsch gives a motivating speech which leads to my absolute favorite moment in this film:

KITSCH: It doesn't end this way.
RIHANNA: We know. We read the script, too.
NAGATA: But we have no more boats.
KITSCH: Or do we?

Kitsch looks longingly over at the USS Missouri, established earlier as being a dinosaur. Oh, and a museum. Not an active warship.

NAGATA: But that's a museum!

Cut to: The USS Missouri, former battleship and current museum. Kitsch and company are all standing onboard, clearly wondering where to start first. Dramatically, WWII veterans begin popping up all over the ship. They are badass. And ready to kill some alien lizardmen. Together, the vets and Team Kitsch de-museum the battleship, which apparently still houses live ammunition.

For the record, I started laughing at the line "It doesn't end this way." I was in tears (from laughing so hard) by the time they started knocking over popcorn machines and USS Missouri merchandise on their way below deck to get the ship moving. It was epic and completely worth the price of admission.

But the laughs (and corresponding tears of joy) don't end there. The Missouri quickly makes it way out to the final alien ship, where Kitsch has an epitome inspired by The Art of War. Or, at least, he thinks so. The maneuver we witness is equal-parts impressive, unbelievable, and laughable. The result: we win! The force-field falls! But there is only one bomb left onboard to take out the satellite array that the aliens are finally about to get working. And it's located on the absolute wrong side of the ship. As the aliens boot up the communication satellite, Kitsch and company carry a thousand-plus pound bomb across the ship. Thank goodness that Burrito Girl and Mick are still around to stall the aliens...

To make a long story short (too late!), they finally manage to bomb the array, defeating all chances for the aliens to call in for reinforcements. In a "one-last-attack-by-the-murderer" homage, the alien battleship makes a final attempt at destroying the Missouri. Since the force-field has been deactivated, Admiral Neeson and his merry band of aircraft carrier planes swoop in to save the day.

The film concludes with yet another award ceremony where Kitsch once again attempts to ask Neeson's permission to marry his daughter. Spoiler alert: he says no. Double spoiler alert: Kitsch plays the "But-I-Saved-the-World" card. Triple spoiler alert: Neeson was just messing with him. They go off to eat chicken burritos together and "discuss [Kitsch's] surrender."

Cut to: End Credits with Creedence Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son blasting.

At least fifty percent of the theatre audience (there were six of us in total) is simultaneously laughing and crying by the time the credits roll. We did not stay for the very end, but it turns out there was a final scene making some attempt to spawn a sequel Battleship film. I found it on YouTube. It's lame. Glad we didn't stay to watch it.

So there's Battleship. Hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did. Even if no one in the film gets to yell "You sank my battleship!"