Title: Battleship

Opens: May 18, 2012

Do you really get what you pay for? Two hundred million dollars was spent on “Battleship,” a Michael-Bay style “Transformers” ripoff that paid back every dollar that the production cost—and that’s just in Europe and South Korea! But what do you really receive for that money? A picture without soul, yet another way for the youthful, testosterone demographic to get its rocks off by watching aimless destruction by an enemy that appears to have no rational motivation to destroy. According to the plot—such as there is—the U.S. makes contact with a planet about the same distance from our sun as we, one that has life that looks almost human under an impressive uniform of steel. And what do these aliens do when they land in Hawaii? Their way of enjoying the beach is an odd one since without even a moment of negotiation, they begin to blast away at everything in their path. As one character states near the beginning in the only bit of dialogue that sounds probing, “They’re like Columbus and the Indians, but we’re the Indians.” Let’s hope that at least one segment of the audience understands the depth of that statement.

The naval film is anchored by a performance from Taylor Kitsch, a thirty-one year old Canadian-born hunk who starred as the title character in “John Carter,” but is perhaps even better known for his role as troubled football star Tim Riggins on NBC’s “Friday Night Lights.” Seen in the movie’s opener in the only minutes worth your thirteen dollars’ admission, Kitsch inhabits the role of Alex Hopper, a slacker whose idea of impressing a blond beauty, Samantha Shane (Brooklyn Decker) is breaking into a grocery store to get her the chicken burrito that she craves just after the kitchen closes in the local bar. What’s amazing is that the impression is made: Shane, who is the daughter of an Admiral (Liam Neeson), becomes engaged to the layabout who, with his long hair and woozy character is hardly the sort to be impressed by the commander.

For the most part—after this fairly promising introduction—the missiles do the talking. Hopper is persuaded by his older brother, Stone (Alexander Skarsgård) to join him in the Navy, is promptly made lieutenant because of skills he allegedly has, and turns out into the only person able to save the world from a brutal attack by the aliens—who have already made toast of the skyscrapers of Hong Kong. When the folks from Planet G crash into the Pacific and get ready for action since they’re way ahead of us in computerized targeting, the movie turns full of sound and fury, signifying you-know-what.

There is one aspect that saves the movie from total senselessness, and that is the way director Peter Berg, whose “Hancock” dealt with a superhero who falls out of favor with the public, highlights several people who achieve more than would be expected of them. One is Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales (Gregory D. Gadson), who is real life is a double amputee and Iraq-war hero, turns from a defeated man getting physical therapy from Samantha Stone, into a renewed fighter who faces down one of the aliens. Another is Cal Zapara (Hamish Linklater), a dorky scientist working in Oahu and who serves as comic relief, who does likewise with an alien, at least temporarily putting the latter off guard. Best of all, Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber’s script elevates a group of septuagenarians, veterans of World War II, who take over the battleship Missouri, now seventy years old, allowing the big boat to do a job that the most modern destroyer is unable to perform.

This is not to say that the tech credits are less than awesome. If that’s what floats your boat, you just may have a good time watching “Battleship.”

Rated PG-13 .130 minutes © 2012 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online

Overall – C