The movie is based on a boardgame

Film: Battleship
Stars: Rihanna, Alexander Skarsgård, Brooklyn Decker and Liam Neeson
Director: Peter Berg
Genre: Romantic comedy/ drama
Running time: 131 minutes
Rating: PG-13 for violence, action and language
Showing at: Cineplex
Preview by: Kalungi Kabuye

OH no, not another pop star that feels she can act. That is probably the first thought you will get when the credits rolland Rihanna’s name comes up.

Not many successful pop artists, their talent or lack thereof notwithstanding, have made a credible transformation to film. Unfortunately Cineplex set the press screening of this film set for yesterday, much too late for this paper, so I can’t tell you personally whether Rihanna sucked or not; or whether she had on any clothes or not.

What I can say is that it cost a whopping $200m to make, and by the first week of release in selected countries in Europe it has grossed $4.6m.

You do the maths. But it is set to open next week in the US, maybe that will help. In the movie, based on the board game of the same name, Taylor Kitsch plays badly-behaved Navy lieutenant Alex Hopper, who is forced by his commander brother to join a destroyer flotilla in an international training exercise off Hawaii.

However, a fleet of alien spacecraft from a race known as The Regents, responding to a signal from NASA, land in the Pacific with the annihilation of humanity at the top of their todo list.

They set up a force shield over half the flotilla and proceed to destroy it. With all senior offices dead, Hopper takes charge of the USS John Paul Jones and, as the Vice-Admiral (Liam Neeson) watches from shore, the battle to save Earth and mankind begins.

That is the premise, but how was the movie? “You can’t trash trash (can you?), and that’s exactly what Battleship is,” writes Chris for 21st Century Films. “A big, loud, silly piece of Hollywood trashentertainment that, to its credit, doesn’t pretend to be anything else. “

The Daily Mirror’s David Edwards agreed: “Like the very best junk food, Battleship has no nutritional value whatsoever but goes down easy.”