Battleship [Blu-ray]
A**U
Intense Action Thrill Ride with Heart
I saw Battleship in the theaters earlier this year. 6 times. I love this movie. It is my favorite film next only to the Avengers. I thought this was better than Men in Black III. Since many have already reviewed the plot, I am going to share some of my favorite moments and tidbits. Director Peter Berg is a Navy fan and it shows. Battleship has outstanding Transformer style special effects, lots of action, a great cast and support of the Navy, which includes many naval personnel, both active duty, retired WW II & Vietnam vets and wounded warriors. (You must see Army Col. Greg Gadson, a real wounded warrior who lost his legs in Iraq, personally take on an alien warrior-he is one tough soldier!)You don't see many of the latter in save the world films. Taylor Kitsch is wonderful as Alex Hopper, our slacker turned hero and I love Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood) as his responsible Navy Captain brother Stone. They have a nice vibe between them. Rihanna is absolutely bad ass as Navy gunner Raikes. She spent time with weapons training with a real gunner named Jacqueline and she modeled her performance partly on this tough young lady. You will see Jacqueline in the bonus specials. Brooklyn Decker is wonderful as Sam, Alex's girlfriend and physical therapist. The alien weapons are awesome (the first ship destroyers are designed to look like the pegs in the board game), both peg projectiles and the formidable shredders which eat metal and have a mind of their own. We humans are considered much of a threat until we directly provoke them. Time for the Navy to save the day! While we normally see aircraft carrier and fighters, it is great to see what a destroyer does and Director Berg does a great job of putting you in the action and making it easy to follow.Ignore the critics and the bad reviews. This is a great movie, with lots of action and humor. I have friends who didn't see it in theaters, rented it loved and now wished they had seen it during its initial run. Several of them bought it. One friend said it had more action than the Avengers. Sit back, relax and enjoy seeing the Navy save the world. This is a wonderful tribute to our veterans, active, wounded and retired.**************************************************************************************************************THERE IS A BONUS SCENE AT THE END OF THE CREDITS SET IN SCOTLAND. Many people didn't know about it or missed it. The digital copy includes subtitles and languages and the bonus scene.****************************************************************************************************************Some favorite scenes:Alex getting tazed after damaging a convenience store to get Sam a chicken burrito. Great comic skills from Taylor.Alex meeting Captain Nigata (TADANOBU ASANO, a famed Japanese actor-Thor fans, you know him as one of the Asgardian Warriors 3) during the soccer match. Nigata kicks him in the face, causing Alex a concussion and the loss of the game. This sets up the dynamic relationship between the two.During the Rimpac exercises (the Naval games that include 13 nations participate in) some great moments:Alex explaining the difference between a destroyer and a battleship (a destroyer is the Terminator, a battleship is a floating punching bag)The opening ceremony aboard the Might Mo, USS Missouri battleship (the cast and crew shot aboard the real Mighty Mo, including a rare opportunity to film the Mighty Mo out at sea (details in the great making of docs including a tour) with over 600 multinational sailors and WWII vetsA great contrasting scene showing the difference in approaches Stone and Alex use while speaking to their crews. Stone as commander encourages his crew to be safe and learn cooperation from other nations and "Keep Charging." Alex as tactical action officer informs his crew to crush the enemy and outperform every other ship during the exercises. Watch the faces of the crew during Alex's speech when he says "We are not here in this weapons room to learn." Priceless looks from some of the real Navy sailors!When the Navy encounters the aliens and the action begins, note the care shown to include reactions from the sailors, they have some of the greatest reactions during the battles. "Who's running the ship? Hopper. Hopper is, we are all going to die?!" When a helmsman is steering the ship in a dangerous area, "Ordy, we are about to kiss these rocks, man! I can see fish man!"Alex in command of the John Paul Jones after the CO and XO are killed insisting on charging the overwhelming power of the aliens that costs Nigata his ship and the loss of the Sampson and brother Stone, being reminded by Petty Officer "Beast," (a great John Tui) that there are sailors in the water who need to be rescued.Key section in which Alex and Nigata begin to work together (their dynamic, contrasting styles help drive the film) while plotting their next move. When Nigata explains his water displacement strategy "seeing them without seeing them" Alex steps back and offers Nigata his chair, showing how much he has learned. Raikes (Rhianna) and other crew members give him questioning looks and he says "My brother would have done the same." One of my favorite scenes in the whole film. Watch the crew reactions as they first question and then rejoice in Nigata's clever usage of water displacement (like the battleship board game) to take out 2 alien ships.Destroyer John Paul Jones' destruction of the the third alien ship, which in turn sends out shredders to rip up the JPJ. Incredible special effects showing the shredders ripping the ship to pieces!A truly great scene where the survivors of the JPJ board the Might Mo. Beast says the ship is 70 years old with steam engines that he doesn't know how to run. There is a great view of the veteran sailors around the ship who come forward and step up once again when asked to fight. Great patriotic moment. I saw this on Memorial Day and the folks in the audience applauded. The Mighty Mo still packs a punch and it is worth it to see her take on the last alien ship and win. Another great section. Alex references the Art of War (a legendary Chinese guide to war strategy) several times during the film. Near the end he realizes the last confrontation reminds him of a section of Art of War. When the Mighty Mo defeats the alien ship, I love the exchange with Nigata.Nigata, "I can't believe that worked!" Alex, "Art of War, after all these years it finally clicked! Fight the enemy where they aren't." Nigata, "That's not what that means!" Alex, "Really?" Nigata, "Not even close!" Buy the ticket and take the ride. A number of reviewers on iTunes were surprised at the amount of action and enjoyed it as well. I think you will enjoy this fun film. I am sorry we won't get to see further adventures of Alex Hopper.
S**M
Don't take yourself so seriously as a movie critic, eh?
OK, come on, people. it's a movie. I read through some of the one star reviews and they are harsh. I never understand why we can suspend believability for one movie and not another. So, you Star Trek geeks out there can faithfully repeat the dialog of the Good Captain Kirk from the 60's version of the show; you can argue the reality of it episode by episode, but you can't suspend reality for 2 hours to watch this? Really? You can camp it up with "Swamp People" on reality TV, but you don't like Rhianna because she's skinny? I don't like Rhianna either, but because she doesn't seem to be a very nice person in real life. I don't have a problem with her role here.So let's take this in a nice orderly fashion.First, if you are a CGI hater, why are you even here? There are plenty of Indies for you. I like real. I like CGI. I guess that makes me easy to entertain.Next, I love the review that trashes the main character for being a "bad boy". OK, I don't know what you read or watch, but the "bad boy makes good" plot device is old, man. Really, really old. So, Mr. Kitsch has that down after playing "Tim Riggins" on "Friday Night Lights" and he did it well here. Must be that Canadian hockey thing, eh? I loved seeing him with Jesse Plemmons again, also a "Friday Night Lights" alum. I'd like to see him play a different character, though. Mr. Berg is typecasting him, and probably Taylor Kitsch as well.To others who said that this is a rehash of other movies of this genre. Well...yeah! Did you think it wouldn't be? I thought it was better than the Transformer movies, but that may be because I'd had enough of Shia Lebouf after the first one. Give me Taylor Kitsch any day over Shia Lebouf. I liked it better than the last "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon" movies.Somebody really trashed Peter Berg and his directing. Well, that's all personal preference. I thought that the movie entertained AND made a little fun of itself in the process. I like movies that don't take themselves too seriously. Like "Day After Tomorrow" and that sanctimonious speech by the VP at the end of the movie. I love that movie, but I cringe at that part. I'm usually talking back to the screen by then anyway. The plot here isn't that difficult. In fact, it's pretty simple. So, Berg didn't get bogged down in sub-plots or hidden meanings or agendas. He told a far fetched story. Have you read Shakespeare? Talk about fetched! Now, I'm not comparing the two, obviously, but still, we have a history of far fetched stories in the English speaking world. In terms of sci-fi," Star Trek", the original series was far fetched. "Farscape" is far fetched. "Star Gate" however, is true. I know Jack O'Neill is out there protecting me from the bad guys. And the greatest story of all, "Lord of the Rings", is only fetched, because I believe that one too. Too much TV? How about "Alice in Wonderland", "LOTR", "Tarzan", "The Wizard of OZ", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" just to name a few? My point is, that of course the story isn't believable. I'm pretty sure that you cannot swing a battleship around like that on an anchor, but can you fly into the mothership and upload a virus? I don't want it to be believable, do you? I want fetched and far-fetched if I can get it. As I write this, the doctor with ebola just landed in Atlanta to be treated in the US. The plane is on the way back to get the nurse. Over 1300 people that we know of have ebola in West Africa and over 700 have died. We got the Gaza-Israel thing; we've got some stupid stand off with Russia going on. So, yeah. I want far-fetched if I can get it.Some things I really liked about the movie: I loved that one of the heroes is a double amputee. I hope they used a real guy for that and didn't CGI it, but even if they did, good for them to use a wounded veteran character. Those guys deserve to be treated like heroes for the rest of their lives. I loved that they used an "old" ship and "old" veterans to save the day. That was classy. I like the message, that they may be old, but they are still useful and that new (as in technology) isn't everything. I liked that they launched the "Missouri" to "Thunderstruck" by ACDC. It was a good moment and it fit.What did I not like? Well, I do agree with the criticism of the aliens, but it's not a deal breaker. That they can't take the sunlight...well, yeah, that's lame. But, that's like 2 minutes of the movie. I thought the beginning was slow and wondered when they'd get to the point. I thought the science guy on the mountain was useless and I didn't think they used the people back in Washington as well as they could have. I'd have taken more time to develop that over some of the fight scenes. This movie owes a lot to it's predecessors. Just about every gag they did had it's roots in some other film from the genre. They could be paying their respect to the ones who have gone before, but I'd like to see just a little bit more originality. The anchor thing is original, though. It isn't believable, but it's original. So 4 stars.So, will you like this movie? I have no idea. HA! If you are in a relatively good mood; if you want to see some action, but you also don't want the story to be too heavy; if you want to laugh; if you want to see 2 hours of product placement for the NAVY; then you might like it. It's a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously and you shouldn't take it too seriously either. It's a romp! Just good, clean, America-glorifying, shoot 'em up fun. If you are in a serious mindset, there are plenty of Indie and mainstream movie indictments of the war in Iraq out there to satisfy you. Watch one of those and save this for a fun day. Me? I'm going to buy it on DVD. I quilt a lot and I like to quilt to disaster and action movies. And just one final thing. Sometimes, picky is a good thing. We should all develop our picky-ness to a point. And if you are someone who "has better things to do than watch movies" (read that in a deep bass voice), then you may not be entertained here. You might just be too picky, and that's great if you are. Just maybe don't watch the movie and leave supercilious reviews. Maybe you should read a book or ride a mountain bike somewhere and pick up organic goodies for the kiddos. But, if you just plain like movies, you're not after "Citizen Kane" every time you sit to devote some time to the art form, then you may be easy to entertain like me. And what is so bad about that?
V**O
one of my all time favorites
Battleship -- its something between nostalgia meets Transformers - if you are of the right age group and understand what the 4 Iowa class battleships represented in their prime, then this movie will hit all the pride a glory marks - is It a little unrealistic, yes but in the entertainment business its called "the willing suspension of disbelief." - like the movie Independence day, when the chips are down and the home team wins in the last minutes of the game, everyone cheers
T**H
Did it make my Blu-ray player not able to read disc?
I'm very excited to have this movie. But there is one big problem, it failed to read by my Blu-ray player, eject and eject a few times before it starts to play. I bought this for the ending part, the final battle. If this disc can play at the first go, I will give it a 5 stars.
M**Y
Family friendly
Appreciated that there was only one kissing scene and nothing more.
A**R
I really like this movie!
Well I watched it because it has Taylor K. in it! But it turned out to be a really good movie. I should just buy it I watch it so much!
F**D
Go ahead I know you want to
Great movie great for my DVD collection
S**K
Great movie!!
Great action. Good story line and interesting characters.
P**Z
happy
I am happy with my dvd. Arrived sooner than expected. very happy
8**E
Battleship 4K
Non-stop action from start to end, really happy with the audio/visio and would recommend to anyone who loves this.
S**O
Buen 4K UHD
Llego con el case, sin slipcover.La calidad de la imagen es buena y es una mejora con respecto al blu-ray y los servicios de streaming. La nitidez, brillo y saturación del color, son las mejoras que vas a encontrar en esta edición en 4K.El sonido es en inglés DTS X, y se escucha fabuloso, así como español latino DTS 5.1; con subtítulos en ambos idiomas.El código es válido solo para USA.
R**.
Good entertainment
Lots of action. Some comedy
M**K
Five Stars
Cool.
Trustpilot
3 weeks ago
5 days ago