Battleship -2012-2012 ((top)) -

For five uninterrupted minutes, Battleship stops being a board game adaptation and becomes a love letter to naval history. The Missouri ’s nine Mark 7 guns swivel and fire. The shells—weighing as much as a small car—fly in slow motion. The aliens do not know what hit them. It is loud, patriotic, and genuinely moving. If you watch the film for one reason, it is to see a World War II veteran cry as he fires a gun he last touched forty years ago.

“You got a plan, son?” Stone asked, handing him a heavy shell. Battleship -2012-2012

Critically, the film holds a 34% on Rotten Tomatoes. But here is the secret that the search reveals: hatred has softened. In the years since its release, film writers have re-evaluated Battleship as a "pre-MCU exhaustion" blockbuster. It is an original (non-franchise) intellectual property that feels like a 1990s disaster film. It has practical explosions. It has a coherent visual style (not grey and muted). It has a third act that relies on analog technology and human ingenuity, not CGI blobs fighting. For five uninterrupted minutes, Battleship stops being a