Battleship (Blu-ray) (2012)

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General		Extras
Category	Sci-Fi Action	Main Menu Audio & Animation Alternate Ending Featurette-USS Missouri Tour Featurette-Making Of-Multiple
Rating
Year Of Production	2012
Running Time	131:14
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Peter Berg
Studio Distributor	Universal Sony	Starring	Taylor Kitsch Alexander Skarsgård Rihanna Brooklyn Decker Tadanobu Asano Hamish Linklater
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	?	Music	Steve Jablonsky

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 Japanese dts 5.1 French dts 5.1 Italian dts 5.1 German dts 5.1 Spanish dts 5.1 Catalan dts 5.1 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Japanese English French Italian German Spanish Catalan Dutch Chinese Danish Finnish Icelandic Korean Norwegian Portuguese Swedish Chinese	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     I really enjoy sci-fi action films. The Avengers is one of my favourite recent films. Having said that, I do have certain expectations around character, story, acting & dialogue quality and other elements which take an action film to another level. This film, Battleship, is very reminiscent of the recent Transformers films, however, this one makes those look like Lawrence of Arabia in terms of story and acting quality. I suppose I should not have expected much of a film based on a board game, but they could certainly have done more with this basic premise. The link to the board game is tenuous at best. The word battleship is mentioned a few times and there is one sequence which involved bombing specific co-ordinates trying to hit an alien.

     The basic story is very clichéd reminiscent of many recent films. A young man, Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is a bit of a loser, sponging off his brother and generally making a nuisance of himself. His brother, Commander Stone Hooper (Alexander Skarsgard) gets sick of this and makes him join the Navy with him. Alex, of course, is still a trouble maker getting himself in trouble with the Admiral of the Fleet, Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson) during some naval exercises. Naturally, as this is going on Alex has fallen in love with the Admiral's daughter and aliens decide to attack earth. In a fairly clichéd bad boy becomes hero plot, Alex needs to defeat the aliens to repel their invasion. Mechanical Alien Vs. Naval Vessel mayhem ensues.

     On a positive note there are some pretty cool action sequences and special effects on display here especially the shredder balls. Other than that though, this film is pretty dire. There are too many plot lines, characters do things that don't seem to make sense, the dialogue is diabolical, the acting on the most part is very ordinary especially Rihanna who is very wooden in her role. Kitsch is not even as good as he was in John Carter and Skarsgard is wasted. Neeson appears briefly at the beginning and at the end, looking like he wants to find a phone to shout at his agent. The film is very serious, badly needing some intentional comedy relief so it doesn't take itself so seriously. Added to that the film is probably at least 20 minutes too long. The effects are really cool though, did I mention that?

     Action fans who like alien invasion films may get something out of this but it cannot be recommended.

Video

     The video quality is excellent and really cannot be faulted.

     The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio. It is 1080p encoded using AVC.

     The picture is extremely sharp and clear throughout. The detail levels are superb. Colour is excellent.

     There are no artefacts.

     There are subtitles available in many languages including English. They are clear and easy to read.

     There are no obvious layer changes during playback.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio quality is excellent, a real house shaker.

     This disc contains multiple soundtrack options, English DTS-HD MA 5.1 plus DTS 5.1 tracks in Japanese, French, Italian, German, Spanish & Catalan plus an English Audio Descriptive track in Dolby Digital 2.0.

     Dialogue very clear and easy to understand although just one or two lines were a little difficult to make out.

     The music by Steve Jablonsky is another link to the Transformers films as he wrote the scores for those too. His music is suited to the film and does its job admirably.

     The surround speakers are incredibly well used for planes, radio signals to outer space, missiles, explosions and much more. Awesome stuff.

     The subwoofer is also used constantly for explosions, ships, aliens and the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     A decent selection of extras.

Menu

     The menu included music and motion plus allowing for scene selection.

Alternate Ending Pre visualisation (7:33)

     The director introduces a computer animated version of another possible ending which would have been even stupider than the one actually in the film.

USS Missouri VIP Tour (20:10)

     The director gets taken on a tour of the USS Missouri which is featured in the film. This is actually quite an interesting extra and well worth a look, despite being somewhat gung-ho.

Preparing for Battle (11:09)

     A making of featurette which covers the game and how they linked it to the film, the training for the cast, locations, filming challenges, using the USS Missouri and how they used sets as well as real ships.

All Hands on Deck : The Cast (11:40)

     Featurette about casting including cast interviews, behind the scenes footage and the naval consultant they used to add realism.

Engage in Battle (6:58)

     Featurette about the challenges of filming out in the ocean off Hawaii and shooting on actual ships. OK.

Commander Pete (5:46)

     The director and why everybody involved loves him.

The Visual Effects of Battleship (11:30)

     Featurette about the best part of the film, the visual effects mostly done by ILM. Includes discussion of the inspiration for the various alien ships and weapons. Worth a look..

Battleship Video Game Trailer (0:53)

     ZZZZZZZZZ.

    The local Blu-ray is missing the two flagship extras from the US Blu-ray being a picture-in-picture commentary by the director and second screen extras and functionality for your tablet. Region A is the pick but if you just want the film there is nothing wrong with the local edition.

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is excellent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall