Enjoyable, enough.

Not as good as: Ironman (1).
Better than: Ironman 2. Thor.

Has Gwyneth Paltrow given up shoes? I couldn’t figure out why she was barefoot in both her scenes in this movie.

Ignoring the actual few and far between tie-ins to the game of Battleship, which were actually the best parts of the movie and used so sparingly you almost didn’t notice them:

This was the schmaltziest, most sentimental, ridiculously attempting-to-pull-at-your-heartstrings action film you will ever see. The minute that group of WWII soldiers starts to walk across the deck? COME ON, NOW.

Sadly not very good at all.

I say sadly because hello a) SKARSGARD, b) Peter Berg, c) Taylor Kitsch, d) Liam Neeson, e) sailors, f) ships, g) aliens. Those are all things I like.

So. Let’s see. I enjoyed this movie while watching it but in discussing it afterward with my fellow viewer who had NOT read the books, it really seems the movie’s a bit THIN. Certain scenes ONLY MAKE SENSE — or have a very important part of them that only make sense — if you’ve read the books and can say “oh, well that’s because of X thing not shown in the movie.” So that’s one problem.

And the choices they made around certain plot points, particularly those toward the end of the film, mean that while this was an adequate movie of book 1, it will be nigh impossible to make even adequate movies of books 2 and 3.

I liked the mood and tone, I think they got some of that stuff right. But I think they got enough stuff wrong that it’s only adequate. And I think they’ve screwed up the avenues that would have allowed them to do a decent job going forward

Perhaps some of that is because I reread the book right before I saw the movie. (And then came home and reread books 2 and 3.) But if it can’t stand up to that kind of scrutiny, then it doesn’t work.