BATTLESHIP (2012)

                                                               

                                                                                                                               
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*                                                                                                                        This movie is ostensibly based on the 1960s board game, which to persons of a certain age, remains immortalized by its catchphrase "You sank my battleship". BATTLESHIP's scenario of Earth's naval battleships fighting an alien invasion did not score at the box office, yet for various reasons, next year's PACIFIC RIM from a not dissimilar plotline, but substituting manga-style mecha in place of naval vessels.                                                                                         

         
 The two "military-men-vs.-aliens" flicks also have in common the use of that venerable trope: "self-centered potential hero learns to serve the greater good." In RIM the protagonist loses his brother early in the film and has to form a bond to a new mecha-partner so that he can save the world. In BATTLESHIP, main hero Alex (Taylor Kitsch) acts up so much that his square-citizen brother Stone (Alexander Sarsgaard) forces Alex to join the navy to escape prison. One doesn't have to have seen even one war-film to guess that when the main conflict starts, Stone will be the sacrificial goat whose death helps motivate Alex to shape up and repel alien hordes.                       

    Though I recognize that there's little in BATTLESHIP that isn't derivative of other films, I liked this movie more than PACIFIC RIM, or, for that matter, the nineties ET-effort INDEPENDENCE DAY. The aliens themselves are largely standard heavies, but I did like the fact that they're so powerful, they don't bother sending the equivalent of shock troops. All we see are five huge spaceships (and some of their occupants), which descend to the humans' world to set up a communications array, paving the way for a titanic attack force. But their incursion happens to coincide with a series of battleship war games-- usually of ships from all over the world, but here limited just to Americans and Japanese participants. These happy few are called upon to undermine the invasion by taking out the task force.   

  It's hard for me to say why the gung-ho militarism works better here than in many comparable projects. Certainly none of the subplots are distinctive, and the acting (including that of pop singer Rihanna) is never more than decent. Yet the best subplot serves as a reminder of military sacrifice for a greater cause. The character of Lt. Col, Canales, played by real-life double amputee Gregory Gadson (who bears the same real-life rank), provides such a reminder. Whereas starring character Alex has to take on the hero's role after losing his brother, Canales has already lost both his legs and much of his will to live prior to the invasion. Repelling the evil extraterrestrials is a baptism of fire for both characters, though they never meet, and the contrast between newbie and old hand gives BATTLESHIP a little more vraisemblance than one usually finds in such big-budget spectacles.