-2012-2012 - Battleship

6/10 stars — Sink your expectations, and you’ll have a blast. Keywords used: Battleship -2012-2012, Battleship 2012 film, Peter Berg, Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna acting debut, USS Missouri scene, Battleship box office 2012.

When you type the keyword into a search bar, you are likely looking for one specific moment in pop culture history: the summer of 2012, when Universal Pictures took a simple pen-and-paper guessing game and turned it into a $209 million alien invasion spectacle. Not the 1989 computer game, not the classic Milton Bradley version, but the Peter Berg-directed, Rihanna-starring, Taylor Kitsch-fronted cinematic oddity. Battleship -2012-2012

During the RIMPAC exercise, Alex Hopper’s recklessness leads him to steal eggs from a convenience store to impress a woman (Samantha). As punishment, his brother Stone forces him to mature. But before that arc can finish, an alien force field dome traps three Navy ships (the John Paul Jones , Sampson , and Myoko — representing the global nature of RIMPAC). 6/10 stars — Sink your expectations, and you’ll

The film opens with NASA transmitting signals to a newly discovered Earth-like planet in the Gliese system. In 2012, this felt prescient; today, it feels quaint. The aliens respond by sending five ships to Hawaii. Not the 1989 computer game, not the classic

, however, was slightly warmer. It earned a B+ CinemaScore. General audiences in 2012 wanted mindless fun post- Avengers (which had released two weeks earlier and absolutely crushed Battleship at the box office). Box Office: A $300 Million Sinking The keyword statistic for “Battleship -2012-2012” is its financial performance. The film cost $209 million to produce (plus another $100 million+ in marketing). It opened to just $25 million domestically — a disaster.

Roger Ebert gave it one star, calling it “a film assembled from spare parts of other alien invasion movies.” Critics in 2012 lambasted the product placement, the jingoism, and the sheer absurdity of using a board game as a template.

And for those who search for that exact year — 2012 — you are not looking for the board game, the video game, or the history of naval combat. You are looking for the movie where Liam Neeson shouts, Rihanna fires a grenade launcher, and a WWII battleship does a J-turn to fight aliens.