AMERICAN WARSHIPS DVD review

Yes, the review you've all been waiting for is finally here. American Warships/Battleships/the latest Asylum mockbuster is now out on DVD. But is it any good and how does it compare to its bigger, stronger cousin, Peter Berg's Battleship?

BATTLESHIP VS AMERICAN BATTLESHIP: This Means War

The Asylum, long-time purveyors of straight to DVD dross that looks suspiciously like whatever big budget action film is currently in cinemas, have recently found themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit from Universal Pictures, thanks to their recent film American Battleship. I can see what Universal are saying, but surely THIS time it was purely coincidental? The Asylum couldn't have PLANNED to release such a similar film at the same time? They wouldn't release yet ANOTHER film just to try and piggy back some profit off Hollywood's best efforts again, would they? WOULD THEY?

American Battleship. No, Not The Liam Neeson One.

Destined to be the second best hastily assembled knock-off of the year after John Carter of Mars, those "geniuses" at The Asylum look like they've done it again with this loving homage to Battleship, the big budget Taylor Kitsch/Liam Neeson/Rihanna(?) movie that's supposedly based on the 'once loved but currently in the cupboard upstairs' board game of the same name.

Putting the inspired into the 'inspired by', I think it's pretty clear what's going on here. Taylor Kitsch's agent is clearly leaking storylines to The Asylum so that when they release their cheap, poorly acted, low budget efforts, Kitsch keeps on looking like Marlon f'ing Brando by comparison. Judging from this trailer at about ten seconds in, he's also hidden their spellchecker. The bastard.

n.b. The irony of chastising a production company for basing a film on a film that itself is just a blatant attempt to copy the Transformers formula isn't lost on me.