Third Battleship trailer sells scale and non-stop explosions, but leaves me bored.

I made a comment the other day on a radio podcast I guested on, basically stating that there are at least a few 'big summer movies' that I'm not only not very excited about. I basically feel like if I end up seeing films like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Men in Black 3, or Battleship, it will be out of some kind of obligation or because there is something specific about them I may want to write about (for example, how well Snow White and the Huntsmen plays as a feminist adventure).  As for Battleship, I can see no societal value or social relevance that would merit an essay (I've already said my peace regarding the casting of Rihanna) and my only real curiosity involves whether or not the climax involves Liam Neeson muttering "You sunk my battleship!" right before he dies.  I will say that unlike a certain insanely expensive movie that came out last weekend, you can clearly see the money onscreen this time around.  The film looks pretty huge, perhaps the 'biggest' movie of summer 2012 in terms of large-scale action and worldwide scope.  But yeah, this film looks like a perfectly-blended hybrid of Transformers, Armageddon, and The Guardian.  But since the action is going to be personality-free robots attacking personality-free ships, I can't imagine any emotional investment will be found.  Maybe I'm too old for this kind of thing, or maybe Battleship really is the definitive personality-free/humanity-free blockbuster that we've been leading up to all these decades.  Maybe I'll see it, maybe I won't, but I don't expect to have too much to say about it.  This one opens on May 18th in the US but April 11th elsewhere, so we'll see...

Scott Mendelson      

She can sing, but can she act? Why exactly is Rihanna starring in Battleship instead of any number of actual black actresses?

I am not the first person to bring this up.  Heck, Samuel L. Jackson went on a mini-tirade about this a decade ago, regards to male actors.  But in a day-and-age where meaty roles for black actresses are incredibly scarce, especially in big-budget studio films, it has to be a little grating for the many underemployed African American actresses to see one of the bigger female-minority roles in a major summer tent-pole this year going to not a trained thespian, but a media-friendly musician of thus-far unknown acting capabilities.  Rihanna (full name: Robyn Rihanna Fenty) may indeed have the chops to convincingly play battle-ready Petty Officer Raikes who helps Taylor Kitsch fend off an alien invasion in Peter Berg's Battleship.  But one has to ask why a popular musician with absolutely no acting experience whatsoever got the prime gig ahead of any number of African American actresses who have struggled with the glass ceiling that exists in the industry.