Netflix Sci-Fi Action Blockbuster More Fun Than Rotten Tomatoes Makes You Believe

Battleship is directed by Peter Berg from a script by Jon and Erich Hoeber and stars an impressive cast that includes Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker, Tadanobu Asano, Hamish Linklater, Liam Neeson, and Rihanna in her feature film debut. The film also has some small parts for Rami Malek and Jesse Plemons before they broke into the mainstream big time.

This being the early 2010s, Battleship takes a much more self-serious approach to adapting a board game than you might expect to see in the 2020s, or in any Netflix original for that matter.

While Battleship doesn’t resemble the board game at all, it’s still a pretty fun and dumb Netflix action film with some bombastic set pieces. The film follows the crews of warships who find themselves facing off against an alien naval fleet that plans to steal the Earth’s resources. The American and Japanese forces must work together to stop this extraterrestrial threat.

So, Battleship is a bit goofy, but it’s not nearly as bad as its 34 percent Rotten Tomatoes score would make you think, or even compared to recent Netflix originals. If you’re expecting a whip-smart action movie with great storytelling, you must look elsewhere. But if you’re expecting something silly and fun to keep you entertained for a couple of hours, then you may have found your weekend watch.

Battleship, in the midst of a second life on Netflix, famously flopped at the box office, grossing $303 million worldwide against a production budget of around $209 to $220 million. Reports said that the film lost Universal and Hasbro $150 million all said and done. So, it wasn’t quite the success that Hasbro’s Transformers and GI Joe film franchises have been.

While Hasbro has kept the Transformers train going with the aforementioned animated film and the upcoming GI Joe crossover, it has taken a while for the game and toy company to want to circle back to board game adaptations after Battleship. But if anyone can make a good board game movie, it’s Margot Robbie. Her production company is taking on Hasbro’s Monopoly game, which will almost assuredly perform better than Battleship was able to before Netflix.

Interestingly enough, Universal wanted to cancel Battleship at one point due to troubles during pre-production. The studios would have taken a $30 million hit for canceling it, but chairman Adam Fogelson decided to increase the budget instead. This ended up being the wrong call since the $150 million loss at the box office was worse, but at least we got a pretty fun movie out of it.

We’ll have to see if good board game movies (like Jumanji…sort of) can be a thing again when Margot Robbie’s Monopoly hits theaters. In the meantime, Battleship will have to do. You can stream it now on Netflix.