Battleship (2012)

“Battleship” -– based on the board game -– bombed in theaters, and a viewing reinforces its death as deserved. The is an ugly CGI-drunk mess, taking 40 minutes to start as director Peter Berg (“Kingdom”) and his screenwriters break their backs and our patience introducing a screw-up U.S. Navy hero (Taylor Kitsch) destined for greatness when evil aliens invade Earth. Plot? Aliens attack. Navy fights back. That’s it. Unless you count the burrito subplot as vital. I do not. This could have used a rewrite and a butcher’s knife in the editing room because even Liam Neeson, onscreen for 15 minutes, looks bored as the Navy commander/father of Kitsch’s girlfriend. Here’s the real riddle: Despite the dull rip off of “Transformers” and “Halo” that defines 95 percent of the flick, Berg coolly employs real veterans young (Gregory Gadson, amazing) and old (WW2 and Korean vets) as saviors of our Hollywood-cast cardboard heroes and this move openly calls bullshit on every rah-rah action hero ever made. Corny? Yes. But it works. Alas, inept studio mentality sinks smarts. Bombs away! C

The Master (2012)

In “There will be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson told the story of America’s greatest gifts -- capitalism and religious freedom –- gone mad. “The Master” does not rise to such heights, but it never could have. It also follows two men -– again representing one idea -– at odds. Joaquin Phoenix plays Freddie Quells, a World War II vet who is violent, perverted, alcoholic, immature, and a drifter, until he literally stumbles onto the yacht of a man close in age, but light years beyond Freddie’s mental reach. Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a scientist, writer, philosopher, and cult leader of a trillions-year-old self-help religion known as The Cause. (Scientology? Maybe.) Dodd has a family and scores of admirers. Quells wants it all, to be Dodd, but can’t recognize that impossibility. It is clear that Quell stopped maturing at 13. He’s all awkward male poses and farts, a hormonal teenager. Dodd sees Quell as a pet project, and Quell pings-pongs, loving and loathing Dodd as others point out the man’s fakery. Yet, Dodd is convinced of his own powers. So, who truly is the better man? Like “Blood,” Anderson offers few answers, but provides another riveting, fascinating, and endlessly debatable story. A