Peter Berg's Battleship 2012 is a strange mix of stupidity and amazingness
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
After Michael Bay made a hit out of Transformers, Hasbro ( who made the toys, Transformers were based on ) decided that it would be a good idea to make more, similar films, based on other Hasbro toys. So they chose to adopt, fucking Battleship. Really? ↩ Reply
![[embedded image]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Hra_n%C3%A1mo%C5%99n%C3%AD_bitva_%281%29.jpg/960px-Hra_n%C3%A1mo%C5%99n%C3%AD_bitva_%281%29.jpg "Battleship game from Hasbro")
All of us probably played this game at some point or another. You have two sides, playing against each other. You put your ships onto a map. While you don't see how your opponent puts his ships. And you take turns trying to guess where the opponent's ships are by "shooting" certain coordinates. And marking them one color if missed and another color if hit. How, for the love of god, you adopt this table-top game into a blockbuster film? ↩ Reply
With Transformers it makes a hell of a lot of sense. Those are cars that transform into big robots. This is cool. Michael Bay originally thought that it would be stupid. And looking at the toys by Hasbro you can totally see why. But then if you think about taking the core concept and making some rather spectacular stuff from it ( which was what Michael Bay ended up doing ), you get yourself some rather good blockbuster stuff. How the hell do you do this with Battleship? ↩ Reply
Peter Berg who, in my review of Hancock, I noticed to be, somewhat of a Michael Bay imitator, probably thought that he could top Michael Bay with this movie. If Bay made something rather cool with the "stupid" Transformers toys, maybe it would be even cooler, if Berg can take Battleship and make something equally as spectacular. This is probably the only logical explanation for why the film feels the way it does. ↩ Reply
The writing of the film is strange. It fails to coherently mix elements that would feel a lot more together in a Michael Bay production. Maybe it has something to do with how Bay treats his main characters. This movie introduces us to two brothers Alex and Stone Hopper ( played by Taylor Kitsch and Alexander Skarsgård ). I fucking loved Skarsgård in this movie. And I think it was a genius casting decision. The dialogue between the two is so epic that only a great viking like Skarsgård could pull this off without it being cringe. ↩ Reply
It is also interesting that while Shia Labeouf was transitioning into "serious" film-making by ditching Transformers and Michael Bay and going instead to work with Lars Von Trier on Nymphomaniac ( 2013 ), Alexander Skarsgård just previously worked with Von Trier on 2011th Melancholia and now was transitioning into blockbuster film-making under Peter Berg ( a Bay imitator ). ↩ Reply
Also watching this film I noticed two very interesting things: First, like as if it was a Jerry Bruckheimer production ( it wasn't ) it has a huge cast of recognizable faces. You have Liam Neeson and Jesse Plemons and Rami Malek and even fucking Rihanna. And secondly, I didn't think previously about it, but Rihanna, at least in this movie, looks like a cute little boy. What the fuck? ↩ Reply
![[embedded image]](/pictures/user_upload/blenderdumbass/rihanna_battleship.png "Rihanna in Battleship")
This perhaps explains why a certain french director cast her later in a strip-tease scene in a different sci-fi blockbuster. But that's besides the point... ↩ Reply
While the script of Battleship is a cheap attempt at building some plot around the basic mechanic of the table-top game ( which means it barely works ), the direction by Berg is actually quite solid. Berg is not Michael Bay, so he doesn't know how to Bayhem! properly, but his eye for spectacle isn't terrible. ↩ Reply
The visual effects in the film, especially the alien ships stuff ( yes, this film has alien ships ) are actually really good. Except of one little thing. This movie was released after Avatar and yet it seems like the alien creatures are hand-animated. This movie had an enormous budget. They could have made them using motion capture or performance capture or something. But based on the stuff I see in the film, it looks like they are animated by hand. They look like cartoon characters. Well done cartoon characters, but still cartoon characters. ↩ Reply
The plot is, by far, the weakest part of this film. It tries very hard to go out of its way to justify the scene where the battleship needs to use the strategy that people know from the table-top game. It breaks all of the logic leading to it. And results in a mess of a story. Now that could have worked in the hands of Michael Bay. He proves time and time again that plot coherent-ness doesn't really matter, given that the movie itself is Bayhem! enough. And given that the characters are colorful enough. But Berg doesn't do that. He tries to Bayhem! but fails a tit-bit short of Bay. And the characters aren't as memorable. ( Even though there is some attempt there ). ↩ Reply
The best character is Mick Canales ( played by a real life amputee Gregory D. Gadson ). He has no hope in the beginning. But due to the alien-invasion and some unique circumstances, he finds new purpose - to kick the alien-ass. He even gets an epic fight scene. Respect! ↩ Reply
But the main character Alex Hopper is way too perfect to be a main character in a film like this. Yes he is a trouble-maker. Yes he is not the best material to be a captain of a battleship. But he is nowhere near as broken as fucking Sam Witwicky ( Shia Labeuf ), or Cade Yeager ( Mark Wahlberg ). Those two motherfuckers are not simply imperfect specimen, but rather absolutely pathetic human beings. Pathetic to their core. Sam is perhaps somewhat smart. But his constant nervousness and absolute lack of even the least amount of self-esteem, makes him perfect for the tragicomedy that Bay is going for. We are lead to believe that this motherfucker is the only chance for the planet Earth, and so we are truly terrified. The punchline could be that he is too pathetic to handle the situation. But then, through shier genius Michael Bay finds a way for this character to, in fact, succeed in handling the damn situation. And that gives the audience an insane level of dopamine. ↩ Reply
I'm not saying that I didn't feel good when Alex Hopper did good decisions. But I felt like it was somewhat inevitable that he would. The only problem he has is discipline. He has the smarts and the charisma and the physical strength to pull this off. And an alien invasion is a good enough motivator for someone like him. With Sam? He is scared shit-less from everything in the story. And yet he needs to keep a straight face because there is a hot girl near by. And that's what makes it fun. ↩ Reply
I want to dig deeper into Peter Berg's filmography. His Michael Bay mimicry and specifically how he not quite succeeds at Bayhem! is quite interesting. So prepare for more reviews like this one. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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Troler
c:0 January 30, 2026I have a hint, you really want to make Bayhem! be felt in your film, to a point you're studying directors who've failed at it.
... replies ( 1 )
Blender Dumbass
c:1 January 30, 2026@Troler I do want to make good Bayhem!. But I think I will go at it the way Edgar Wright does it. I will not try to rely on Bayhem! being good. Only Michael Bay can do that.
Blender Dumbass
c:1 January 30, 2026... c:0
@Troler I do want to make good Bayhem!. But I think I will go at it the way Edgar Wright does it. I will not try to rely on Bayhem! being good. Only Michael Bay can do that.
... replies ( 1 )
Troler
c:2 January 30, 2026... c:1
Blender Dumbass c:1 January 30, 2026c:0
@Troler I do want to make good Bayhem!. But I think I will go at it the way Edgar Wright does it. I will not try to rely on Bayhem! being good. Only Michael Bay can do that.
@blenderdumbass Then you need to deep dive into Edgar Wright.
... replies ( 1 )
Blender Dumbass
c:3 January 30, 2026@Troler That is a good suggestion. I want to view his film "The Last Night in Soho" once again.
Wanna watch it together, and each will make his own review?
Blender Dumbass
c:3 January 30, 2026... c:2
@Troler That is a good suggestion. I want to view his film "The Last Night in Soho" once again.
Wanna watch it together, and each will make his own review?
... replies ( 1 )
Troler
c:4 January 30, 2026@blenderdumbass Sure, but let's do it before 8 pm UTC+2, I don't want to go to bed at 12 pm.
Troler
c:4 January 30, 2026... c:3
Blender Dumbass c:3 January 30, 2026c:2
@Troler That is a good suggestion. I want to view his film "The Last Night in Soho" once again.
Wanna watch it together, and each will make his own review?
@blenderdumbass Sure, but let's do it before 8 pm UTC+2, I don't want to go to bed at 12 pm.
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