BATTLESHIP

Stars: Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker, Alexander Skarsgård, Tadanobu Asano and Rihanna.
Writers: Erich Hoeder and Jon Hoeder
Director: Peter Berg
Running Time: 131 mins.

Rating: 3/5

Ever since the trailer hit theatres/the net, we’ve all expected Peter Berg’s Battleship to be a watery version of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. And it is exactly that.

Sadly, in 2012, that’s a negative. The memory of Transformers 3 is still raw – it was one of the worst films in recent memory, the sort of dim-witted blockbuster that gives blockbusters a bad name. But in 2007, when Bay’s first toy-inspired movie landed upon us, we all said “Hey, for a movie about machines that turn into talking robots...well, that’s about as good a movie as we are ever going to get!”

And that’s the Transformers movie that Battleship most resembles. Berg has crafted an undeniably big, loud, dumb alien-invasion action flick based on a hoary old toy that absolutely deserves to be ridiculed - but it is also impossible not to enjoy the no-holds-barred spirit that everyone brings to the film.

The character’s back story is preposterously flimsy, yet Berg takes his sweet time telling it. Taylor Kitsch is Alex Hopper, a cocky jerk who has somehow gone from drunk, horny, petty criminal (exactly how the film introduces him) to 2IC on a state-of-the-art US naval vessel. His brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgård) is already serious officer material; his super-hot girlfriend, Samantha (Brooklyn Decker, a good foot taller than her leading man) is the daughter of the fleet commander, Admiral Shane (a completely disinterested Liam Neeson), who has hated Hopper from day 1.

Flung together with international crews for some Pacific Rim war games, their pretend combat drills are disrupted by the first wave of an inter-stellar armada determined to overrun Earth. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt, which is exactly what happens. Not that you’d know it – Berg blows up entire warships and levels most of Hong Kong with barely a glance towards the body-count clock.

Such flagrant mass destruction indicates exactly where Battleship is headed, as if it wasn’t plainly obvious from the first appearance of the lizard-like, off-planet visitors. The aliens are gettin’ their just desserts, and Hopper is gonna serve it up navy-style. It is not wholly the American way - Tadanobu Asano’s Japanese sailors provide the smarts, figuring out a grid pattern offensive that is the only real nod to Hasbro’s original toy – but the unrelenting kick-ass agro of Kitsch and his men is this film’s macho raison d’etre.

The aliens travel in monstrous warships that shape-shift effortlessly, which is where the Transformer comparison kicks in. But Battleship is also a lot of Top Gun, and a lot of Independence Day, and a little bit of An Officer and A Gentleman. There really isn’t an original thought in Berg’s film, but there is a whole lot of energetic action and more than just a little excitement. The actor-turned-director proved with Welcome to the Jungle, the terrific The Kingdom and the under-rated Hancock that he can frame and cut together thrilling set-pieces.

The actors react to green screens convincingly; scenes that involve dialogue or push character depth are disposed with perfunctorily. No one in this film is under any false impression that Berg is crafting some alternate version of Hamlet; Kitsch, Asano and Rihanna (perfectly likable in her sidekick role) scream and sweat and jump a lot, as the script asks of them. Special mention should be made of real-life veteran and multiple amputee Gregory D Gadson, who brings a sardonic earthiness to the pivotal role Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales.

REYKJAVIK WHALE WATCHING MASSACRE

Stars: Pihla Viitala, Nae, Terence Anderson, Miranda Hennessy, Helgi Björnsson, Guðrún Gísladóttir, Stefán Jónsson, Aymen Hamdouchi and Gunnar Hansen.
Writer: Sjón Sigurdsson
Director: Júlíus Kemp
Running time: 83 minutes

Rating: 2.5/5

 

Preceeded by a reputation that combines Oscar-nominated heft with unbridled homeland critical derision, Júlíus Kemp’s Icelandic-made splatter-flick Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre is the sort of loopy, energetic slasher film that is destined to keep floating to the surface at midnight-screenings. Deliberately OTT in its gory dispatches and crassly xenophobic enough to rile the intelligentsia, Kemp’s riff of ‘Texas Chainsaw’-style claustrophobic terror is neither as bad as some would have you believe nor as shocking as it makes itself out to be.

With the whaling industry all but decimated by enviro do-gooders (“Green piss,” as one character calls them), ex-harpooners Tryggvi (a hulking Helgi Björnsson), psychotic younger brother Siggi (Stefán Jónsson) and complete fruitcake matriarch, Mamma (Guðrún Gísladóttir) drift aimlessly aboard their decrepit rust-bucket, feeding their dormant blood-lust by picking off lone seafarers. All their Christmases come at once when a whale-watching expedition, comprising a smorgasbord of international caricatures, looses their Captain (the original Leatherface himself, Gunnar Hansen) and must seek refuge on board the murder-boat.

Screenwriter Sjón Sigurdsson crafted the AMPAS-recognised score for Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, making an international star of country-woman Björk (who returns the favour by granting permission for this production to use her hit, ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’). But the brazen originality he exhibited as a lyricist abandons him in his second screenplay (after sharing credit on 2001’s Regína). Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre contains some rich howlers, delivered by actors who either weren’t in on the joke or weren’t talented enough to convey the irony.

Kudos goes to leading lady Pihla Viitala, whose initial vulnerability morphs into momentarily strong clarity; she is by far the most realistically etched character in film full of inscrutable Asians, shrill middle-aged Pommie women, panicky American hotties, drunken French men of Moroccan ancestry and a well-spoken African gent who, I kid you not, is referred to by the killers as ‘Black Jesus’. No film in recent memory has so openly toyed with such broad racial stereotypes.

The gore is plentiful but so comically portrayed as to be of little consequence (compared to Australia’s similarly-structured Wolf Creek, its impact is meagre). A neatly-staged kill involving a harpoon (the film’s alternate title in some territories) is a highlight, as is a closed-quarters fire stunt that looked to have been particularly perilous to film. The film goes joyfully off-the-rails when an Orca targets some third-act survivors.

Other key assets include a richly authentic sea-faring flavour and the film’s thematic examination of the sad deterioration of traditional hunting dynasties. Their importance to the proceedings, however, mostly fades into the background, bathed in the gooey redness of kinda silly slasher film tropes. But the pretensions of  Sigurdsson and Kemp afford the film a modicum of credibility in a genre that is too often easily dispensed with.

Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre will screen on Saturday May 19 as part of the Sydney Writer’s Festival. In attendance will be screenwriter Sjón Sigurdsson, winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize for The Blue Fox, president of the Icelandic PEN Centre and director on the board of Reykjavík, UNESCO City of Literature.

THE AVENGERS

Stars: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L Jackson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgård and Clark Gregg.
Writer/Director: Joss Whedon
Running time: 143 mins

Rating: 3.5/5

The one thing that the average moviegoer will be most grateful for in Joss Whedon’s geek-tacular epic is that it employs a shimmering, pristine (one might say...stark) colour palette. All but one of the vast action sequences are shot in the cold light of day with no atmospheric fog-FX or lingering explosion-smoke to muddy the 3D lens. It may sound old-fashioned to cherish such an asset, but that is itself perfectly fitting. With a red-white-&-blue hero out front, leading his moral chargers against a yappy Brit-influenced villain, The Avengers is, conceptually, about as gosh-darn old-fashioned as the modern blockbuster gets.  

In fact, if you take the shiny hardware of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Helicarrier headquarters and Downey Jr’s hipster wise-assery out of the mix for a moment, Whedon’s world conjures images of a 1960’s Hanna-Barbera TV-cartoon version – had there ever been one (a small-screen friendly 1.85:1 screen ratio bolsters the notion). His camera feels static, even when it is not; there is a simplicity to his shot composition and editing that subverts even the panels-per-page literary origins of Marvel’s super-group. Whedon has utilised a visual style that honours key team members antiquated beginnings lovingly yet captures the action with a contemporary precision.

It is a simplicity that echoes the heart of The Avengers team, as well. These are heroes for whom there are no grey shadings in the fight against evil – Captain America (cast standout Chris Evans) is a mountain of 1940s stoicism; the bond that sleek operative Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) shares with assassin Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is unshakably honourable; Thor (Chris Hemsworth)...well, he’s Mr Perfect. Even Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who gets dragged from India against his substantial will, is clear as to his purpose in life – stay in control.

Which means that their nemesis has to be black-as-night and powerful enough to pose a threat to all six of our protectors and the world in which we live. As Loki, wayward brother of Thor and commander of a legion bent on Earth’s domination, Tom Hiddleston emerges as arguably the film’s greatest asset. The scene in which he convinces Black Widow just how evil he can be is a cracking bit of screen villainy; he has many of Whedon’s best lines (in a film full of expertly-written, well-timed humour) and the actor, lean but entirely commanding on screen, chews them with maniacal glee.

Not everything about The Avengers completely satisfies. The first act works over a lot of origin exposition that will play well to the fanbase but was a plod to non-comic types (like me); the first big-bang action sequence delivers though it felt like a while coming. Samuel L Jackson’s posturing remains all-wrong as S.H.I.E.L.D. boss Nick Fury (watching Clark Gregg, as the much-loved Agent Coulson, cower to Fury feels wrong). Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark/Iron Man continues his slide into douche-baggery; his smugness has gotten less charming with each screen outing. And, unless I missed some co-ordinates-relevant plotpoint, I can’t figure why Loki would choose the skies over Manhattan to land his army rather than, say, a paddock in Russia.

But The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble or Marvel’s The Avengers – I’ve seen them all used) gets it wonderfully right where it needed to the most. Each hero has ample time in their own spotlight (Ruffalo’s Hulk shining brightest) yet Whedon constructs the enveloping sense of camaraderie seamlessly, all set against top-tier FX and a compelling narrative.