Battleship just screamed Rihanna just about every single chance it gets. And she delivered well. Cast as Petty Officer Cora Raikes, Rihanna oozed at definitive moments of the films and definitely not only with her looks but with one line and now classic, 'boom', delivered when the earth navy delivered the kill shot that killed the aliens off. Just like her lines, there wasn't a hair out of place for this R&B singer, whose make up seemed spotless in all her shots, even though they spent most of the 131 minutes running time fighting to stay alive. Rihanna got thrown around in a scene by an alien warrior but she survived.
Rihanna was a crew mate and weapons specialist under Kitsch, who was the weapons officer on board the USS John Paul Jones before he got promoted to captain after the ship's captain and first officer where both killed in the alien's opening attack. Kitsch, whose other major role so far is playing John Carter in a periodic thriller based on life on planet Mars. This is second action film role and it seems the Canadian actor's charms would soon make him one of the A List actors in Hollywood. But since Battleship had a $500 million budget to shoot it, maybe he has already arrived.
Anyways, Kitsch was this ill disciplined boy who broke into a shop just to show a young woman that he loved her, much to his older brother's displeasure as the young girl, played by Brooklyn Decker was the daughter of his commanding officer and the Pacific fleet commander played Liam Neeson. Nonetheless, older brother played by Alexander Skarsgård got younger brother to join the Navy but this didn't seem to work because younger brother Kitsch was about to be discharged from the Navy by the admiral himself, after he fought a Japanese naval commander following their loss in a soccer game. Yes in this movie, the Japanese have a Navy and they are in a joint exercise with the US Pacific fleet operating out of Pearl Harbour. And yes, the tagline here is that destroyers are way cool than the threatening looks of the aircraft carriers.
But the alien ships destroyed the destroyers by throwing depth charges at the destroyers. The aliens' main weapon of choice is not the slick missiles but depth charges, which attach onto the target before exploding.
Since the guys who brought you 'Transformers' are also involved in the 'Battleship' movie, I wasn't the least surprise that one of the aliens, they most probably forgot to feature in two 'Transformers' movies made its screen debut in Battleship. When the aliens first landed, they created this huge force field around Hawaii before sending out this alien, similar to the one Shockwave was riding in the 'Dark of the Moon' movie. And the aliens move around in this box like flying ship and by the way, they have a very well organised Navy too. But what they didn't count on is ill disciplined punks like Kitsch's Lieutenant Alex Hooper and sexy looking Cora Raikes a la Rihanna to trump their planned invasion. And not even with their preferred weapon of choice, a destroyer but a junk of an aircraft carrier which crewed by real sailors, finally got the aliens down. The USS Missouri's powerful guns reverberated throughout the cinema like thunder.
The magic of the Transformer movies was not present, especially the robotic action pieces but the action sequence was a good one with boys playing sailors with high powered explosives and good lawd, powerful ships and guns. That is, if you like playing the game Battleship in the first place. But in the end, the movie as an acting debut for Rihanna, don't be disappointed because she will never disappoint you, as she clearly shine in the movie, and not only with her looks but the strong character that she has to play.