American Warships (2012)

Crack open a sixer of cheap stuff, kids! It's time to once again enter The Asylum!

In case you were unaware of what The Asylum is, they produce what are called "mockbusters." They've been around for quite a while, producing such classics as "Paranormal Entity," "Transmorphers," "Snakes on a Train," and my favorite deceptive title, "The Day The Earth Stopped." This latest entry, "American Warships" is unsurprisingly a knockoff of "Battleship," but where this story gets interesting is that Universal actually threatened The Asylum with a lawsuit unless they changed the title from its original moniker, "American Battleship."

You know, I hate to come down on the side of The Asylum on this one, but seriously, Universal can choke on a spatula. The Asylum's original title is actually far more accurate than the big expensive flop "Battleship." After all, in "Battleship," the majority of the movie takes place on a destroyer. It isn't until the last act of the movie they get their hands on an actual battleship. "American Battleship" is totally accurate. The whole movie takes place on a battleship. From America. Seems legit.

But no, they had to change the name, which now make it make just as little sense as the title of "Battleship." In fact, it makes less sense, because there is only ONE ship in "American Warships" that does anything. The rest get blown out of the water instantly. We are following just ONE ship the whole time, so where does the damn plurality fit in here?

Oh and by the way, I don't care if "American Warships" is direct to video. Considering the difference in budget, I guarantee you that The Asylum made way more money off every dollar invested in their movie in rentals than Universal did domestically, considering "Battleship" only made back about 25% of its $200+ million budget in the states. So who's laughing now, Universal? Thunder Levin, that's who.

Awesome name off the port bow.

Did I mention the director of "American Warships" is named Thunder Levin? That's not a pseudonym. That's his real name. And that makes this movie, at least in part, hardcore. But there is one more thing about "American Warships" which makes it even more hardcore than a director with a name worthy of porn. I am of course referring to the fact that The Master of Disaster, The Count of Monte Fisto himself, Carl Weathers is staring in this movie.

So without further ado, on this very special occasion when we celebrate big box-office bombs by watching a movie filmed for roughly what craft services spent for one day on "Battleship," I would like to introduce to you a new game we're playing. It's called:

HOW MANY CARL WEATHERS REFERENCES CAN I MAKE!?!?

(By the way, craft services on "Battleship" had everything you needed to get a stew going.)

1

So "American Warships" is, on the surface at least, pretty similar in plot to "Battleship." An alien invasion via sea based alien vessels threatens humanity, and a lone American ship is the only one in a position to stop it. They also do a similar thing to the force field that was in "Battleship," only in this film, it's not a force field, but a total frying of any kind of integrated electrical circuits that enters into range of the alien craft. That means that essentially, anything possessing technology post-1950 is kind of going to crash and burn. So cue the WWII battleship being sailed back to the States that happens to be in the exact right place at the right time. Lucky seems not powerful enough of a word.

Another big difference is that the alien ships are invisible. So Mario Van Peebles, playing the captain of the battleship USS Iowa, has to follow the ship's wake, which I guess the aliens are too stupid to realize that they leave behind them. Intergalactic travel is one thing, but mastering the concepts of water displacement is quite another. And you know, the wake almost looks like it was made by a giant alligator. Fortunately, nobody loses a hand.

2

Most of "American Warships" is spent with Mario Van Peebles following this wake, and every once in a while firing off some of the guns in an attempt to hit something. And while this may sound boring, there is something of a pressing time crunch that does manage to give the movie some tension.

In a very "Crimson Tide"/"Hunt for Red October" style of plot, the world assumes that the ship is North Korean, since it attacked South Korea. And if it's not North Korean, it's probably Chinese. Anyways, the last conclusion anyone is jumping to is "alien." And since it also wiped out an entire American fleet in the first scene of the movie, this thing has got everyone running scared, and talks quickly move to nuking EVERYONE. America sends bombers to take out North Korea, and it's up to Mario Van Peebles to prove that it is an alien ship before they do, otherwise there is no tomorrow. THERE IS NO TOMORROW!!!

3

Carl Weathers shows up whenever the movie occasionally cuts back to the war room as an army general, and in what I have to admit is a bit of script writing I really appreciated, the Secretary of Defense is NOT a total douchebag who has been pushing too many pencils.

4

In movies like this, that character or their equivalent is always portrayed as a jerk who just refuses to EVER listen to reason or consider the possibility that the heroes will succeed. They always just sit there, finger on the button, sweating and growling through their clenched teeth that they have to report back to the President in an hour, so they BETTER have some GOD DAMN ANSWERS for him!!!

And the entire time you're just wondering what happened to them? They used to be one of the good guys.

5

In "American Warships," when the SoD busts in the room, adjusts his suit, gives Carl Weathers an annoyed, overly stern look and says "General, what the HELL is going on?!" I rolled my eyes and prepared for the worst. My fears were pretty much unwarranted, thankfully, because not too long after that introduction, the SoD is actually portrayed as a reasonable, even-keeled guy who is actually working WITH Carl Weathers instead of just yelling and being a tool. So props to "American Warships" for nixing that cliche. Otherwise, a fight between them could have broken out, and Carl would be looking at maybe $10,000 in hospital bills.

6

I have to say that while there is not exactly "riveting" action going on, and it's still really low budget, I was admittedly invested in this plot for the most part. The Asylum used to have this nasty habit of being obscenely boring to the point of being unwatchable, but they've gotten better over the years. There is a coherent storyline going on here, something that was actually lacking in a lot of their other films, and while the budget does make the action scenes kind of harsh to get through, I've seen a lot worse from The Asylum. But it was lacking something, what was it? Excitement? Enthusiasm? Esprit de corps?

IT'S ACTION!!!

7

What the film really lacks in however is the special effects. When the aliens are finally seen, it's...not pleasant. And by that I mean it's a really bad effect. The look almost as bad as the aliens from "The Darkest Hour." Maybe worse, I couldn't really tell you. At least the aliens from "The Darkest Hour" looked like an enemy from "Doom 2" or something. These just looked like something made in a late night drunken game of "Spore."

But did the really bad looking aliens ruin "American Warships?" Nah. It was just a cheesy footnote. You don't see them a lot, although the "shock" at the end which I guess is supposed to be the obligatory "4th act" in a horror film is pretty lackluster because of the lameness of the CG. Other than that, it was just one of those "Oh, well of course they look terrible" moments.

So what did I end up with? Seven references? I feel like I'm missing one. Um...how about: Aliens using cloaking devices? That's original.

8

Nice.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "American Warships" is for people already familiar with The Asylum. If you're not, it's going to hurt bad. If you are, it's actually a pretty fun time with a cheesy D-grade movie that manages to be reasonably entertaining. Recommended for fans of The Asylum. It's one of their better films.

Battleship (2012)

What is it about the early 90's lately? It must be all us old farts who grew up during that time making movies about what they remember as kids. You've got your "Transformers" movies, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is getting an extraterrestrial facelift (Michael Bay, please just stop doing things), the second "GI Joe" movie is coming out this summer, there are rumors of third installments for both "Ghostbusters" and "Bill & Ted." There was even the thinly veiled "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots" movie "Real Steel." I'm waiting for them to try and make Slap Bracelets and Super Soakers into a film. But my big question is: As long we're making movies out of boardgames now, why hasn't there been a "Hungry Hungry Hippos" movie?

I mean, I can see it happening. Make it one of those killer crocodile flicks like "Rogue" or "Primevil" or maybe even "The Ghost & The Darkness." Hell, you could probably get Val Kilmer to headline it. He isn't doing anything. I don't recall ever seeing a killer hippo horror movie. They can make "Night of The Lepus" but they can't make a hippo a killer? Hippos are scary man. I read a story about how one accidentally ate a circus midget one time. The rest of the movie kind of writes itself after that.

So "Battleship." It is slightly difficult to know where to begin with this one, because on one hand, there is plenty...PLENTY that I could complain about. It would not be hard. Let's get one thing out of the way here, this is not Akira Kurasawa caliber film making. But on the other hand, I ask you, what should one reasonably expect to see when going to see a movie based on the board game "Battleship?"

D'oh! Okay, bad example.

The answer is, based on the trailers, a ridiculous amount of action with some high levels of cheese and possible camp. And you know what? That's exactly what I got. Although I could tear this movie apart bit by bit and stone by stone until all that is left is a hole in the ground, I really can't say that I feel that "Battleship" deserves it. There's just not enough terrible in the movie to make me mad enough to do it.

I had a good time.

What I found fascinating about "Battleship" was that it was basically what would happen if Michael Bay had the slightest shred of talent. Make no mistake, this could easily have been a Michael Bay movie. Hell, it practically screams it. The alien ships even kind of look like something the Transformers would ride around in. But it is free from all of the things that make Michael Bay movies so unbearably wretched. Here's a short list:

1) The comedy is kept separate from the action.
2) You can see what's going on with the action.
3) There are no brutally offensive and racist stereotypes.
4) None of the characters are annoying, shrieking jackasses.
5) It was 2 hours long (as opposed to 2 hours 45 minutes)
6) It doesn't contain over an hour of padding (see #5)
7) The camera doesn't do that annoying, dizzying "spinning around the characters thing" every 2 minutes.
8) No helicopters in slow-motion at sunrise.

*THAWUP THAWUP THAWUP THAWUP THAWUP*

I swear, if the people who made "Battleship" had made "Transformers," we might have gotten a trilogy of half-way decent films instead of the 8+ hours of putrid festering septic discharge that we received. Basically what I'm saying is that "Battleship," while silly and easily comparable to movies like "Transformers," conducts itself with far more dignity than the Michael Bay abominations.

But how did they turn a board game into a movie? Well, by alien invasion, of course. In this time of "Transformers" movies, I guess it's not enough to have big ships blasting each other to pieces with giants guns anymore. We've got to have ships that also fly and shoot stuff that isn't realistic weaponry. And I suppose since "GI Joe" and "The Avengers" already did a lot of that stuff, the makers of "Battleship" felt they should just do the alien invasion plot. You know, since that's original and whatnot.

The aliens came because we made the stupid mistake of trying to communicate with them with huge radar dishes. Naturally, they get the message and promptly say "Nice. Let's invade." So the aliens come ready to blow everything up, but for some bizarre reason, they only send a few ships. This isn't a full-out "Independence Day" level invasion here, this is more like a scouting party. After their communication ship gets destroyed during the landing, the aliens set course for the only other place on the planet they can call home: the dishes that sent the signal. And those happen to be in Hawaii. And fortunately for us, that's also where the navy is.

 Don't MAKE Rihanna act more like Michelle Rodriguez at you...

 At this point you'd think that the navy would start kicking some butt, however this is where the film takes a slightly annoying turn. The aliens throw up a defensive shield that walls them off from anything getting through it, and the navy happens to be on the other side of it. So Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna are our last hope, as the only ships inside the barrier are 3 destroyers.

What sucks about that is that while it does harken back to the game, with a small fleet and limited room, Liam Neeson is on the other side! That means that he is given essentially nothing to do for the entire film except scowl at the thought of Taylor Kitsch banging his daughter. That's a shame to waste such a great actor like that. Although truthfully I was expecting him to die in the first wave of attacks like 20 minutes into the film, so I guess it's nice that he lived.

And while I would hate to see him get blown up, I was imagining in my head Liam standing on the deck of his aircraft carrier...looking out at a the mushrooming explosion of one of his ships going up, binoculars slowly being lowered from his face as he sets his chiseled jaw, clenches his teeth a bit, and growls in his always-kind-of-there Irish accent, "You alien bastards. You sank my battleship."

That would have seriously made "Battleship" the best movie of the year. Automatically.

After the shields go up, from that point on it's really all about the action. Every once in a while it cuts back to the slightly annoying subplot of Taylor Kitsch's girlfriend, played by the not very charismatic Brooklyn Decker and an amputee solider working to stop the aliens on the mainland. It's not that it isn't good, it's just that it's predictable and honestly pretty boring after we just saw a destroyer LITERALLY get cut in half. Driving a Jeep into a power station can't really compete with that.

And in the end, like I said earlier, "Battleship" does its action very well and keeps every encounter with the aliens rather fresh and exciting. No fight is exactly like another. Probably the most different (and memorable) scene is the one we were all secretly hoping they would manage to fit in: the scene were they fire at coordinates. Oh yeah. They go there.

This is also the scene were the actor who steals the movie, Japanese legend Tadanobu Asano, really steps up to show that he is by far the most useful and interesting character in the film. Seriously. This guy blows everyone else on his side of the barrier away. He also has the funniest line in the film.

So do I wish there were more ships involved in "Battleship?" Yes. Do I wish they had used Liam more? Of course. Did the alien invasion make much sense? No. Was that fact offset by the fact one of them got shot in the face with a cannon? Oh hell yeah. So am I disappointed? Nope.

Although I always knew the aliens were keeping them hidden in the "J"s...

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Battleship" is a pretty fun time. Yeah it's loud and dumb and stupid and silly and all kinds of ridiculous and the plot makes little sense and everything else, but it's worth it to see how big, dumb and silly can be handled WELL, because I think we've forgotten what that's like. Recommended.