Guest Reviewer - BATTLESHIP

Battleship is not a movie either of your Stars Hollow editors will get to see any time soon so we are lucky enough to be able to bring you a review from a special guest editor - Jorge has reviewed this movie over at 'My Life In Review' and we are lucky enough to be able to share it with you here...

Battleship (2012)

Okay, now before you rush to judgement I want you to remember - I had no expectations for this film. I went because it looked like it had explosions and the friend I saw it with loves films with explosions. I was simply along for emotional support. Now, having said that, I liked it.

It's no film of the year, it won't win any awards, but it is a very fun film.

There are some glaring plot holes, for example, how did the aliens catch a slower than light transmission at faster than the speed of light? How did they get to earth faster than the speed of light? Why would they bring projectile explosives from the other side of the galaxy if they were that advanced? Wouldn't they have energy based weapons? Wouldn't they have just used that forcefield thing around their individual ships? Why are they vulnerable to weapons that are the technological equivalent to throwing rocks? Why only come with half a dozen ships? What happens when the planet doesn't hear from their scouting party? Won't they send more ships?

Yes, a lot of questions, but if you can manage to switch your brain off for long enough these cease to be a problem. The SFX were simply amazing. I mean such detail and hard work on the layout of these ships and how the physics would work if they broke apart in this certain way. It really was amazing. Clearly this has been the last year or two of work for quite a few people. The scale of it was truly amazing.

Excellent military porn. I could see recruitment numbers spiking after a film like this. It just looks so fucking cool to shoot missiles and shit at aliens. Obviously real war isn't glamourous, but it sure looks that way from the film. I felt like joining the American Marines and I'm not even allowed! I got a very 'America: Fuck Yeah' vibe from the whole thing - which I didn't actually mind.

The film didn't pretend to be anything more than it was. It was aware that it was a summer action film and it just owned it. Yes, I'm huge, what of it? There were some really funny moments when that whole 'we're going to save the world thing' did get subverted and you remembered how ridiculous the entire premise is. As someone who deliberately missed the last couple of Michael Bay films it was not an unwelcome change.

Rhianna is passable as the role Michelle Rodriguez was too busy to play and Liam Neeson was good, except for the fact that he had nowhere near as much screentime as the trailers suggest. They intergrated the whole 'battleship' notion into the film quite well, I thought, but I won't give it away.

I reckon this one's actually worth a look. Boys night out, rather than a date film, mind you.