Based on a video game, the weekend's expensive blockbuster the long, loud, ludicrous, mindlessly enjoyable Battleship was probably sold to Universal studios as Top Gun meets Independence Day.
Having first destroyed Hong Kong, a ferociously aggressive advance guard from a distant planet establishes an advance observation post in Hawaii and takes on the American Pacific fleet, and only hotheaded Lieutenant Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) can save the world from extinction.
Will he find redemption and win the hand of the admiral's daughter?
Every connoisseur of war movies and sci-fi epics will find their favourite characters, situations and lines here (eg "This thing is not of this world"; "I have a bad feeling about this"). And there's the bonus of Rihanna in a non-singing role as a tough petty officer with special weapons training. Director Peter Berg must be fed up hearing wagsask why he didn't direct Titanic.
