Battleship: Seriously, you could do worse

While participating in International Naval war games in Hawaii, a fleet of ships run into an alien armada who intend to conquer the earth. The ships and their respective crews must work together in order to stop this from happening.

A movie based off of a board game seems like a silly idea on paper and director Peter Berg's Battleship certainly does nothing to curb that line of thinking for it was a loud, inane summer popcorn action flick with barely enough story and character to make it sub-standard at best. It is not the worst thing to come out of Hollywood in recent years, in fact, the action and special effects looked and sounded great (guess they spent some of that purported $200 million dollar budget on something worthwhile, too bad it wasn't a script) but there was nothing beyond those special effects and action sequences to give the film life or intelligence. This lack of story, plot, or characters has led many critics to make comparisons of Battleship to the Transformers films (which, oddly enough are produced also by Hasbro). Critics have long chided the director the Transformers films, Michael Bay, for perpetuating the effects laden/story lacking films that Hollywood seems to turn out anymore. In some ways, they are right to do so. The Transformers film series peaked with the original in regards to presenting a whole film, with story and characters to go along with the special effects, and the only reason that happened was Bay had to establish the characters that were going to be around for those two sequels (well, Megan Fox only did one more but I don't think her "acting" ability was missed in the third one). The sequels were either brainless (Transformers 2) or had such stunning special effects, no one seemed to care about the terrible acting or story. Battleship felt like a mash up between those two films, it had a poorly constructed story with holes in the plot big enough to sail a destroyer through and a lead actor in Taylor Kitsch who lacked the screen presence (or acting chops in general) to lead a big budget summer film. Still, those special effects and other visual goodies (to go along with a twist at the climax of the film which featured some real American heroes) throughout provided enough entertainment to at least keep the audience engaged.

Don't believe the hype, Battleship wasn't so terrible that you won't be entertained at some points, it just lacked the intelligence and story to make it anything more than a brainless summer popcorn action flick.

Grade: C- 

The A-Team: Just a good old action film!

A group of Iraqi War vets known as The A-Team are on the run from the military. They are accused of a crime they did not commit and are not only trying to clear their names, but also bring the real perpetrators to justice.

Far from being just another big, dumb excuse for showing explosions the film had an actual story to it (certainly one tinged with hints of the modern world as in the movie evil military contractors and shady Government agencies were after a set of one hundred dollar bill printing plates and framed The A-Team when they stole them) that kept the audience engaged but all director Joe Carnahan needed was the slightest bit of a plot so that he could unleash a plethora of outlandish and extremely entertaining action sequences that would have mouths gaping (the “flying” of the tank was my personal favorite). Throw in a sturdy and effective performance from Liam Neeson as the team's leader Hannibal Smith, good support from Bradley Cooper as Face and Sharlto Copley as Murdock (sorry Quinton Jackson, I did not buy you as B.A. for a second), plus the always beautiful Jessica Biel and you get a nice bit of popcorn action film amusement that will keep you entertained.

If you are looking for the prototypical summer action film extravaganza, you could not do much better than The A-Team.

Grade: B-

Love Actually: the character's the thing.

Films with big ensemble casts are a tricky proposition. If a director spends too much time on a character no one in the audience really likes, then they will loose them altogether. If they do not spend enough time with a character the audience does identify with, then they will still feel cheated and might just start a blog where they rip said film (not that I'd know from personal experience or anything). But when it's done right, a film with a big ensemble cast can work wonders because there is one character that each individual in the crowd identifies with, Love Actually is that film.

The romantic lives of a number of different characters are explored in the film Love Actually. Be it the Prime Minister of Great Britain, a man with unrequited love for his best friends’ new wife or a housewife who fears her husband may be cheating, all of these characters (and more) must find a way to get, forget or deal with that most human of emotions; love.

The strongest parts of the film, aside from many genuinely funny parts, were the interconnecting storylines and characters. With all of the characters and situations they were in it would have been easy for writer/director Richard Curtis to loose control of the film and have it turn into one giant mess. Instead there was just enough of every storyline and character to keep the film interesting and entertaining. In fact, some of the individual storylines were so good that they could have been made into their own stand alone films. Most romantic comedies nowadays are too sickly sweet for their own good and seem excessively phony with endings that are too good to be true, but in this film the happy endings were actually heartwarming because the audience cared whether or not love would prevail. Jam packed with laughs and enough happy endings to make even a pessimist crack a smile, Love Actually was a top notch romantic comedy that everyone could enjoy.

Grade: B