Hasbro has released a bevy of clips for its upcoming board-game based alien invasion action film Battleship.
This first clip shows us some of the drama of the film, detailing the subplot between the protagonist and his girlfriend’s father, who is also his ship’s captain.
This one gives us a good look at the alien technology in the film, and even some of the sort of ‘terminator’ view that the aliens seem to have. We’ve seen bits of this scene in a previous trailer, but here we’ve got the whole thing, and it gives us a sense of how vile these aliens are going to be depicted.
In this one we’re shown one of the more personal action scenes with stars Taylor Kitch and Rihana being chased across the ship by one of the armored foes.
The effects for this film, so far, all look pretty impressive. Unfortunately, that seems to be all that we’re getting from this one, so if you leave your brain turned on in the theater, you probably won’t be able to enjoy the film. Of course, it’s still more than I ever expected from an adaptation based on a plotless semi-tactical boardgame.
The idea of the boardgame, if you somehow haven’t played before, is that each player fires missiles blindly at the opponent’s ocean, only knowing if their missile hits, then basing further moves on the pattern of hits and misses, taking turns until one fleet or the other is completely covered in little red ‘hit’ markers. Mostly it’s a game of chance, with little actual skill unless you get two players who know the game or each other very well.
In this film, the blind firing is represented by a lack of ability to ‘see’ the alien ships on sonar or radar, and the limited engagement space is created by a force-field the aliens deploy.
The ships, guided by a surly Liam Neeson and a rebellious Taylor Kitsch, will have to find a way to fend off the aliens blindly from inside their limited field of engagement. The sub-plot puts Kitsch’s character in bed with Neeson’s character’s daughter, played by Brooklyn Decker.
Here’s the theatrical trailer, for reference:
Battleship, which also stars Alexander Skarsgard, Josh Pence, Jesse Plemons and Peter MacNicol, opens May 18, 2012.
