The Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre is the only one to get it right.
Grammys are awarded in 78 categories but does a classical composition have any chance of winning Song of the Year? Was Zoe Saldana cheated out of an Academy Award nomination because her performance in Avatar was motion capture? Will a comedy or an animated film (or something directed by Christopher Nolan) ever have a chance of winning Best Picture?
But the Antoinette Perry Awards—the Tonys—don’t ask you who was the better actor, the one in the musical or the one in the drama—there’s an award for each of them. So in that spirit, I propose we consider genre films the same way.
Maybe it’s “science fiction” because it takes place on a spaceship (so does Apollo 13 count?) but there’s Battlestar Galactica and there’s Homeboys in Outer Space. So the first category are movies that are meant to be taken seriously, the ones ask BIG QUESTIONS and you leave the theatre pondering them: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Inception, The Day the Earth Stood Still (either version). A subcategory of these movies is those tackling the BIG QUESTIONS, but allegorically—the worlds they posit, no matter how carefully thought-out, are impractical:
Surrogates, Repo Men, Brazil, In Time.
Movies in the second category should not be taken seriously—at all. These would include (but are not limited to) anything (to date) directed by Michael Bay (Transformers 1 through Infinity, Armageddon) and anything that started out as a video game or a Saturday morning cartoon (Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, Masters of the Universe, G.I. Joe). These movies are just eye candy and can only be properly judged by how neat the special effects are—in fact, if you take away the special effects, there’s not much movie left. If you spend any time pondering what they really mean… you have way too much time on your hands.
Movies in the second category have three major identifying characteristics: they tend to be about events, not the
people caught up in the events (a big rock/aliens/zombies threaten to destroy the Earth…) and the action to be taken is a no-brainer (…and it/they must be stopped). There is little room for character development except for the cursory back‑story (in fact, character development gets in the way) and although someone may fall in love or need to be saved or avenged, this is always incidental/coincidental/accidental to the “plot.” The third characteristic is... they usually suck. Big time.
Now there is a sort of slippery slope that goes both ways: sometimes movies meant to be mindless entertainment can have deeper meaning (Dawn of the Dead (the original), Army of Darkness, Soylent Green) and sometimes movies meant to be serious just aren’t (Cowboys and Aliens, Rise of the Planet of the Apes). Sometimes movies built around an “event” have far deeper meaning—The Andromeda Strain (theatrical release), Deep Impact—and sometimes a movie built around a character just goes astray (Johnny Mnemonic, Tank Girl).
And sometimes, movies are just plain fun and that’s all they need to be (Time Bandits, the Men in Black series). Which brings us to Battleship.
First the bad stuff:
There is no deeper meaning to be discerned. There is no real meaning at all. There is only one (1) original idea in the entire script. It is a good one, but that’s it. When the DVD comes out you can get really hammered taking a shot every time you spot something from another genre movie. It should have been called Scene It? (Battleship Edition). The movie begins with a howler of a scientific goof but because it’s implied rather than stated “factually,” they kinda get away with it. Almost. And the Navy, as depicted, reminded me of Starfleet. A lot. The aliens have to be the dumbest (and unluckiest) bunch of ETs since the ones in Signs.
Now, the good stuff:
It doesn’t suck. The CGI actually does not overwhelm the story. The performances were good; no Academy Award nominations here, but they serve the story. (I was particularly impressed by Rhianna, standing in for Michelle Rodriguez, although I picture her acting directions, every time she had to shoot something, was, “Now, just imagine it’s Chris Brown...”) People behave in a fairly rational, intelligent and “realistic” manner. The mindless destruction was localized rather than globalized. To call it Transformers 4 (as I have seen in some forums) is inaccurate, lazy and unimaginative.
And (shameful admission, upon reflection) I enjoyed it more than I expected to. I would even go so far to say I’d recommend it, but only if someone else brought it up first. (Let me clarify that: I wouldn’t tell you not to see it.)
Battleship is good popcorn fun, you’ll laugh, you’ll cheer, you’ll and you’ll pretty much have forgotten it by the time you reach the parking lot. But there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours.
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