Alex Hopper is a screw up who meets a hot girl at a bar and gets arrested after breaking into a convenience store to steal a burrito for her. The most interesting thing about this is that the scene mirrors a viral video of a thief falling through the roof of a liquor store while breaking and entering, and then falling out of the ceiling when he tries to escape.
In an abrupt change in plot that either wasn't mentioned or I missed as while trying to help my friend find the video mentioned above, Alex ends up in the Navy with a buzz cut and dating the burrito girl, who is also the Admiral's daughter.
He also manages to get the rank of lieutenant even though he's still a major screw up and is afraid to ask the Admiral for his daughters hand in marriage. His older brother Stone is a Commander of his own ship. Yes, I see nothing but good things for Stone in the future... well, as much time as he has left on this Earth since he's sure to die.
Even though Alex is a first class screw up who's going to be kicked out of the Navy when they get back to port after the training exercises, I'll bet he's the type of screw up who's going to get his stuff together when he's rocked by a personal tragedy and needs to stop being a loser with authority and anger issues because he needs to man up and save the free world. Well, at first he'll be totally useless but he's got a lot of potential so he'll muster up his courage and go on.
Scientists have been sending messages to outer space, hoping to find a sign of intelligent life. What they don't know is that it worked and aliens are heading towards Earth. They conveniently splash down into the ocean in the middle of the training exercises.
And who you gonna send to check it out? A competent Naval Officer? The lowest ranking seaman? No, you'd send the screw up with untapped potential and a heart of gold hidden under his lazy goof off exterior. Alex walks around on part of the ship and then touches a symbol on the side which starts a metamorphosis of the ship's exterior. Oh boy, that doesn't look good since it appears to be like a Transformer.
The Navy fires upon it - so much for good will to future visitors - and the aliens fire back, taking out the ship. Anyone who threatens it or fires upon it is immediately eliminated. This is done via bombs that look like the pegs used to use to play the game, Battleship. Oh no they didn't! There is also a grid where they plot the movements of the ship and yell out coordinates to fire their missiles, just like in Battleship. Good god....
The lead is played by the same guy who played John Carter in the poorly named movie, John Carter. He must not feel so good to have two recent blockbusters that are considered huge flops. I'm starting to think he may be box office poison. The good news is unlike the last movie, he can pull of this character.
And Liam Neeson as the Admiral? Noooooo?! You're a real actor. Rihanna is one of the leads. How could you sign on for this? Come on! Also of note - it's extremely uncomfortable watching Rihanna getting a backhand to the face from an alien. Not fun to watch a beaten woman get beaten.
It's kind of a Top Gun on the ocean, right down to the homoerotic overtones. The most extreme example - although there were many - is the competition called Rimpac where the background song is AC/DC's Harder Than a Rock. It may not sound bad, but while watching the movie, there is a lot of stuff going on that makes it funny.
Everything being said, it was fun to watch. I didn't want to watch it, but we got a lot of laughs out of it. Since that's not what they were going for, use your own judgement as to whether that's good or not.
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