In “No shizz, Sherlock” news today comes “Battleship” director Peter Berg‘s assertion that his film flopped so that “The Avengers” could soar at the box office, like Tony Stark carting Hawkeye up to a better vantage point. Or something.
“The reviews! They burn!”
Citing the unprecedented success of the Marvel Studios superhero epic having a knock-on effect on other would-be summer blockbuster fare in the marketplace, Berg still holds out hope for a sequel based on decent international business – the film’s US performance makes for less hopeful reading to anybody but the terminally optimistic.
Well, you can’t argue against a US box office take of $600 million but to cite “The Avengers” as the sole reason for your film under-performing is to ignore the rather more accurate idea that “Battleship” is so asinine, noisy and dim-witted that it makes your average Joel Schumacher/Rob Cohen/Michael Bay popcorn flick look like a Ken Loach film and reduces the IQ of anybody unlucky enough to be exposed to it for more than two minutes.
I like stupid, undemanding, glitzy genre crap – see my “Resident Evil“/“Underworld” fandom for ample evidence of that – and even I couldn’t drag myself to a cineplex to behold the spectacle of Rihanna pretending to be a naval officer and various aliens mocking our Earth Physics in the name of entertainment.
Once it comes to DVD and Blu-Ray, I might give the film a go but I don’t expect it to be anything more than shrill and silly, uber-patriotic fluff. Weirdly, Peter Berg seems to believe that he’s made an important film. One of us is right, and I don’t think that it’s him…
Related articles
- ‘Avengers’ Sunk ‘Battleship,’ Director Peter Berg Says (mtv.com)
- Battleship Gets Blown Out of the Water at the Box Office (dreadcentral.com)
I’ve not seen it either although I too might give it a try when it comes out on DVD or Netflix, but I can see why it bombed. The concept of adapting a movie out of that board game is asinine. I honestly can’t see how someone actually sold that idea. Best salesman in the world obviously.
That said the trailers looked a damn sight better than I expected. So there still may yet be some entertainment value in this.
Coming out next summer: Hungry Hungry Hippos: In 3D!
What boggles the mind more? Ridley Scott’s “Monopoly” movie. How THAT becomes a film is for minds finer than my own…
I thought you were kidding about the Monopoly movie at first… yikes!