Battleship [Blu-Ray]

Adapted from the board game of the same name ― something that incidentally has its own brief special feature on the Blu-Ray ― the widely criticized and mocked Battleship is a lot better than it should be despite still being little more than big-budget studio fluff. It adheres to virtually every American blockbuster convention, featuring an underdog, screw-up protagonist accepting responsibility in a life or death situation and ultimately saving the world with the help of misunderstood mentors, a tough chick and a battalion of phallic objects to ward off evildoers or, in more metaphoric terms, "the other." There's even a physically disabled man and a sexy blonde that chime in on the world saving, filling the quota of demographic breadth. But beneath the gigantic battleship and impressively animated alien league that opposes the ragtag naval crew (Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgård, Rihanna), all of which is detailed in the extensive supplemental material on the Blu-Ray, along with on-screen discussions and interviews with director Peter Berg, is something more interesting. Now, the film itself follows a linear trajectory of alien contact turned ugly when spaceships land on Earth and start blowing everything up. What's interesting is that when the aliens show up on our planet, the only thing they do is seek out all destructive weaponry. Never once do they attack or harm a person that doesn't throw the first punch. Yet, for the entire film, we're asked to champion the military for finding creative ways ― one of which is an actual underwater sonar game of Battleship ― to kill the aliens without trying to figure out why they're there in the first place. The underlying message here, amidst all the Americana hoopla and regurgitated tropes, is the danger of attacking and assuming first without establishing motivation and intent. In fact, the amusing thing about Battleship is that the alien reasoning may very well have been to help mankind by destroying their weaponry, seeing as we're far too stupid to utilize it maturely, as demonstrated by the shoot first and ask questions later ethos demonstrated throughout this entire film. Also included with the Blu-Ray is a digital copy of the movie and some interviews with the various actors.