Nitpick: you’re thinking of the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM). However, there is also an anti-shipping variant, the Tomahawk Anti Ship Missile (TASM).
Anyway, the movie came up on HBO last night, and I was too tired after shoveling snow all day to change the channel. It actually wasn’t completely awful. U.S. Navy ships and aliens–what’s not to like?
There was a lot that did suck–no way that a directionless hippie loser who gets arrested breaking into a mini mart gets into a Navy officer program. A junior officer coming in obviously late to a ceremony is simply not done, and getting into a fight with a foreign officer would have gotten him court-martialed.
Anyway, after all of the idiotic character exposition, the movie got down to some great Navy vs. alien action. However, with the aliens constituting an “extinction-level event,” I think that the confrontation would have gone nuclear in short order.
Which could’ve been reduced down to five or ten minutes because it had no bearing on the ensuing adventure whatsoever, making the movie a respectable and more palatable 90-100 minutes long.
I thought the exact same thing. A carrier battle group would have no shortage of nuclear weapons available (though it would have involved some very cliched Presidential War Room scenes!) In reading the OP from last year when it came out, I didn’t even notice that those bombs the alien ships shot resembled the game’s pegs (good thing, it’s stupid). And they’re advanced alien weapons, but so slow that the Phalanx Systems could shoot them down?! And seriously, did Liam Neeson have tax problems or something?! Not only was this way too stupid a movie for him to be anywhere near, he’s in it for like 10 minutes!
All in all, like a B-version of Independence Day (it being one of the worst movies ever made BTW…)
They do in sci fi world. In the last Star Trek movie, James Kirk went from directionless hippie loser to commanding Starfleet’s flagship in, seemingly, a few months.
Plus the fact that has trouble following orders, has zero leaderships skills and horrible decision making. And the crew doesn’t respect him. As I watched (in horror) I could only think they offered this to Chris Pine but he had better sense.
I just finished watching this tonight on HBO. My 6yro son was in urgent care getting oxygen, IVs, albuterol, and x-rays (phew, thankfully no pneumonia at least, just asthma gone apeshit) with my husband at his side, and I was home dutifully bathing and putting to bed the younger brother. My worry had me quite distracted as I waited for each texted update. A good “aliens blow shit up good” stupid movie was a decent distraction from the worry.
It was painfully stupid and contrived, but it was fun and useful for me in this situation. I actually rather liked the (ridiculously improbable) ending, just because it was adorable seeing the elderly veterans run the old ship–that realistically should not have 1) fuel 2) live weapons 3) been able to move…etc., so forth, and so on. It was just cute and pleasantly different seeing a bunch of guys their age say things like “let’s fill it with lead.” Usually those who “save the world” in this movies are infants like the lame male lead.
Incidentally, “Blondie McBoobs” is an awesome nickname.
“They sunk my battleship!” is not uttered. “They’re not sinking this battleship!” is.
Oh, and as I typed this, there was a post-credit “ooh, potential for sequel!” blurb that just played.
“You CAN handle the truth!”
“If you build it, they won’t come.”
“Shane! Don’t come back, Shane!”
“Frankly, my dear, I do give a damn!”
“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You didn’t kill my father.”
“TODAY . . . I CONSIDER MYSELF . . . THE UNLUCKIEST MAN . . . ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH . . .”
“A census taker once tried to test me; I didn’t eat his liver – not with some fava beans, and certainly not with a nice Chianti.”
Watched this movie today (mainly because I’m a sucker for alien invasion movies) and I have to say that I enjoyed it.
Its a very silly film (mainly due to the Hollywoodisms actually) but a lot of fun. The Alien VS Human element was pretty well done I thought, to make a change the aliens aren’t faceless evil monsters, they’re just alien soldiers doing their job, and their technology isn’t really much more advanced than ours, just different.
I’m not American but I genuinely felt like cheering when the USS Missouri hove-to alongside the alien capital-ship with all guns ready to fire.
What can I say, I liked it.
One plot point I must have missed, when the battleship is sailing near to the alien mothership why did the aliens have trouble tracking it? Its mentioned several times that they can’t see them but did it explain why?
Although I did think the main characters brother could be blamed for starting the entire conflict, the aliens appear but don’t really do much, the naval commander sends in three warships, the aliens respond by surfacing three warships, the Captain signals them with the foghorn, the aliens respond with a foghorn (albiet an extremely powerful one) at this point it would seem to me that the aliens are mirroring our moves so the thing to do would be to try to communicate with them…instead Captain Genius fires at them! Granted its a warning shot but the aliens don’t know that, they don’t act aggressively until humanity fires the first shot!
It appeared to me that the aliens and their ships were trained/programmed to ignore the humans unless the humans showed aggression. So when the battleship was cruising near the alien ship but had its guns pointed away, the aliens eyed them warily but didn’t attack. Only when the humans pointed their weapons at the aliens did the aliens attack. This was the aliens’ Achilles heel, conveniently for Earth.
Ah, that makes sense, thanks. Its a little disappointing though because I was under the impression the alien soldiers were ‘just guys doing their job’ and had more autonomy that that, they didn’t just kill and destroy when there was no need to do so.
btw the little vignette after the credits was fun as well!
