I was wondering how they’d turn a dodgy board game into a blockbuster aliens-blow-shit-up sci-fi spectacle. I thought they might skip the strategy stuff altogether and I was really pleasantly surprised how they pulled it off (it’s actually pretty inspired, something to do with tsunami buoys – seriously.) And whilst there’s little character development, some truly hokey dialogue, and way not enough time getting Alexander Skarsgard even vaguely naked, it zips along at a cracking pace, to a thunderous soundtrack, in an entirely entertaining way. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.
Battleship is set in Hawaii, and it largely filmed there, on Maui and Oahu – you’ll expect Jurassic Park dinosaurs to scuttle about in certain locations – although it did also do some stuff in Louisiana. This is a movie that famously pulled its production from Gold Coast Australia because of a lack of incentives; brutal. I’m glad it’s good, though; Taylor Kitsch really didn’t deserve to be poisoned by John Carter.