Battleship

From the toy company responsible for G. I. Joe and Transformers comes Battleship. Get your Scorecards ready to see why only two movies to date have been based on a board game!

• Opening the film with plot-establishing words instead of plot-establishing explosions. = -3pts 
• For casting all of the scientists as unattractive nerds. = +7pts (For not succumbing to the sexy female scientist trope.) 
• Including Stone Temple Pilots on the soundtrack. = +15pts. 
• Alexander Skarsgård within the first five minutes! = +30pts (This score could be higher, however all of the homoeroticism in his scenes appears to be unintentional.) 
• For bringing Tim Riggins all the way from Texas to Hawaii, where he can continue to slack and lazy stare his way through hot chicks. = +6pts 
• Tim Riggin’s not paying attention to Alexander Skarsgård because of tits. = -2pts. (That’s so Tim Riggins of you!) 
• Leading an on-foot chase that ends in a police tasering, just to steal a chicken burrito from a closed mini-mart for a girl you only just met. = +13pts (For capturing true love on film.) 
• Watching Tim Riggins fall through the ceiling of a convenience store…twice! = +10pts 
• New Rule: Eric the Vampire can only take his shirt off if Tim Riggins does, too. = -8pts (You know what, nevermind! We’re going to pause the movie and take this discussion over to our favorite fan fic site. You know, before this gets out of hand…) 
• We aren’t sure if Liam Neeson was in the movie because he owed someone a favor, really needed a paycheck, or is a passionate Battleship enthusiast. = -4pts (To be fair, this is the essential Liam Neeson question of our time.) 
• Tearing open the wounds of the still-living survivors of Pearl Harbor by having Japan beat the US at soccer. = -13pts 
• Tim Riggins getting kamikaze kicked in the face by Kakihara. = +7pts (Hold on, heading back to our fan fic site. Be right back…) 
• Soliloquy in the bathroom mirror. = -2pts 
• For casting James Vega from Mass Effect 3 to play the “burly Hawaiian guy.” = +4pts 
• Un-hilarious amputee exploitation. = -7pts 
• Direct quote: “Boobish behavior.” = -3pts 
• One too many monkey scientist close-ups. = -8pts 
• The military suspects Russia and China are behind the surprise missile attack. = +6pts (For making Kim Jong Il spin in his grave.) 
• Showing adorable Asian children and a statue of Buddha before Hong Kong is decimated by space debris. = +5pts 
• When did Hong Kong get its own Sydney Opera House? = +3pts 
• For not allowing Peter MacNicol an opportunity to gleefully shout, “It’s Vigo!” = -7pts 
• The navy’s response to an obviously alien crash is to send a recon team in a rubber boat armed only with a machine gun. = -10pts (This would be a higher score had they done so with a topless Tim Riggins. Dammit! Be right back…) 
• For having the aliens seal everyone in a Pop-O-Matic Bubble. = -14pts (Wrong game, assholes!) 
• How is the water displacement of so many alien ships surfacing not overturning the rubber boat? Or removing Tim Riggins’ shirt?= -9pts 
• The aliens make a shockwave strong enough to shatter a battleship’s windows and flap Alexander Skarsgård’s lips around without knocking Tim Riggins, Rhianna, and James Vega out of their tiny boat. = -13points 
• Now Rihanna fires the machine gun? GTFO! = -6pts 
• Tim Riggins Matrix-dodging a peg-shaped grenade. = -8pts (He was an all-state fullback for the Dillon Panthers.) 
• For having an explosion so awesome that the editor rewound the tape mid-splosion so that we could see it again, Dolemite style. = +1pt 
• Killing Alexander Skarsgård while leaving Special Needs Matt Damon alive. = -26pts 
• Now the Japanese attack? Of course the aliens immediately destroy their ship. = -6pts 
• Shitting down the necks of veterans by having sentient buzzsaw balls destroy Pearl Harbor. = -13pts 
• The buzzsaw ball passes up the chance to mince a little leaguer to instead collapse a bridge, potentially killing several little leaguers. = +7pts 
• For embracing nerd stereotypes in all the wrong ways. = -3pts 
• Aliens with sea urchin beards. = -4pts 
• If a movie got a star for every video game character its aliens rip off, this would be a five-star picture. = -5pts 
• Cameo appearance by Chris Brown as the alien that punches Rihanna in the face. = +17pts 
• Ruining the majesty of having an alien utterly destroyed with close-range cannon fire by having Rihanna bleat, “Mahalo, motherfucker!” = 0pts (a wash). 
• Equus ex machina. = +5pts 
• Including a scene where someone screams, “Oh, shit! Is he a cyborg?” to a man with artificial legs. = +9pts 
• Matt Retar-Damon figures out the aliens’ weakness because one time he took his pet lizard to the beach. = -7pts. 
• Obama’s IMDB page will be forever tarnished for allowing the use of his archival footage. = +3pts 
• Oh, no! The radar is out! Solution? PLAY BATTLESHIP. = +30pts (Although, we have a strong sense that we enjoyed Pop-O-Matic more.) 
• Having aliens cheat at Battleship by moving their pieces. = +5pts 
• African American Amputee threatens to break off his steel leg in the nerdy scientist’s ass, but doesn’t actually do it. = -1pt 
• Using the word “nincompoop” unironically. = +8pts 
• Missing the opportunity to kill both Not Matt Damon and Rihanna with a buzzsaw ball. = -10pts 
• The much explodier homage to The Titanic would have been perfect had Tim Riggins elected to paint Kakihara like one of his French girls. = +8pts. (Be right back!) 
• Playing AC/DC’s "Thunderstruck" during the “PTSD-afflicted naval veterans make the USS Missouri battle-ready” montage. = +3pts 
• How do they expect to dock the ship without the anchor? = -2pts 
• Explosions are cool until one simultaneously kills eighteen grandpas. = -13pts 
• Grizzled veterans firing machine guns at an alien war ship. = +23pts 
• Quoting Sun Tzu’s The Art of War to a Japanese man as if he should be expected to be familiar with it. = -4pts 
• Remember when Jim Brown fist-fought the alien in Mars Attacks? This movie does. = +8pts 
• Failing to end the movie with a freeze-frame of Liam Neeson thrusting his fists into the air and shouting, “You sunk my battleship!” while everyone laughs. = -5pts 
• Including a stinger where Scottish people act Scottish. = +7pts

Total Score = +8pts
Score Technicians: TJ Geise and Sean McConnell

In conclusion, Battleship was a vapid, tactless waste of two hours. The characters are too bland to be loved or loathed and the action scenes were as infuriating as they were confusing. There’s no reason to pay attention to the plot, as trying to do so would result in paroxysms. That being said, the sheer volume of possible fan fic generated by this movie is not to be ignored. With all this in mind, it’s safe to say that this Battleship sank our Scorecard! Who cares? EXPLOSIONS!!!