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One of the few positive, thoughtful outliers amongst the wave of early negative BATTLESHIP reviews: http://t.co/pmfMfGAK
— Matt Singer (@mattsinger) April 16, 2012
I said it made more of an attempt at storytelling than the average Transformers film, true. But I also suggested it pipe down with the ridiculous noise and get off my lawn forever; so there’s that. I’m still figuring out whether its quoting of the Pink Panther theme is radical or risible.
I also said:
If you’re going to do this; if you’re going to rely on nothing below surface-depth; if you’re going tell rather than show; if you’re going to tie down the mind of the viewer with this much ballast and be as scared of silence and nuance as this — well then, “Battleship” is a decent way to do it. But please stop doing it.
And what an odd place to find a claim to posterity. The way Battleship uses its double-amputee veteran, and for that matter the calls it makes on the soldier-actor involved and the presentation of his disability, is worthy of a serious look. Or at least, of something more than dismissal as a further helping of tub-thumping jingoism, served up for a particular constituency that’s squarely in the film’s dugout. Not that it isn’t kind of that too. But let’s give the film the benefit of the doubt; partly since it has quite the sense of humour, and partly since so much else about it is doubtful as hell.
