What To Expect When You’re The Battleship Dictator
Load the torpedoes and peel the potatoes! The only thing separating battleship generals from a battleship dictators are the tone of the orders. A general expects orders to be followed, whereas a dictator knows they’ll be followed…or else. Regardless, if you’re in a war, conflict, skirmish, mutiny, or coup, you shouldn’t be playing Battleship (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
“Battleship is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of its board game source material: occasionally entertaining yet soul-crushingly repetitive.” Matt Singer ScreenCrush
Sounds like an unintentional adaptation of Monopoly (i.e. where you spend a lot of time worrying about money only to realize it isn’t worth anything [i.e. like this movie])?
“I found myself reveling in the silliness of what is, essentially, the most expensive B-movie ever made.” Anders Wotzke Moviedex
So far.
“Battleship has the IQ of a rutabaga and doesn’t require much more intelligence than that to watch.” James Berardinelli ReelViews
“Missiles have the only sensible dialogue in this otherwise technically awesome picture.” Harvey S. Karten Compuserve
Either the best lines are “WOOSH” and BANG” or this movie has talking missiles. Finger crossed for a wordy-rocket landing with “I’m gunna sink your battleship.”
“Miss.” Empire Nick de Semlyen
(i.e. the second mandatory joke)
“Besides being a blatantly obvious Transformers rip-off, Battleship is essentially explosion porn – a practically endless litany of stuff being blown up, with the destruction of Hong Kong thrown in for good measure.” CJ Johnson ABC Radio (Australia)
A similar missile salvo summary, would be a respectable rocket resume for The Dictator (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
“Cohen is an equal opportunity humorist. It feels like half the audience is unhappy half the time, while the other half is laughing uproariously half the time.” Willie Waffle WaffleMovies.com
Being half-happy half the time sounds like bipolar-humor.
“Take away Cohen’s ability to trap idiots into making fools of themselves is like stripping Superman of his ability to soar.” Phil Villarreal OK! Magazine
Okay, but if we extend the metaphor, Superman still has invulnerability, x-ray vision, super speed, frost breath, eye beams, and nifty red boots. Isn’t Cohen still a comedian despite losing a tried-and-true bit?
“The easily offended will be appalled. The rarely offended may be appalled. But they’ll have to stop laughing long enough to realize it.” New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
“The Dictator is funny, in addition to being obscene, disgusting, scatological, vulgar, crude and so on.” Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Luckily, none of those adjectives mean the movie is bad, just bad taste.
“Bottom line, I didn’t laugh as much as I wanted to.” Neil Rosen NY1-TV
That critic needed to consider What To Expect When You’re Expecting (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
“For all the fear, loathing, and overthinking that Murkoff’s bedside text engenders, its journey ends with the hopeful beginning of a new life, whereas the movie leaves you hoping for a swift end to your own.” Village Voice Eric Hynes
What To Expect When You’re Expecting To Die?
“Ideally, four times the protagonists should yield four times the entertainment value; here it only seems to result in four times the clichés.” Matt Singer ScreenCrush
When it comes to The Birds And The Bees, unless you were Born Yesterday, Jump On The Bandwagon or Bite Your Tongue. In Other Words, The More The Merrier.
“In the realms of pregnancy comedy, What to Expect When You’re Expecting doesn’t find new laughs, just layers on attempts at the tried-and-true ones.” Movieline Alison Willmore
“What to expect when you’re watching What to Expect When You’re Expecting? Not much.” Gary Wolcott Tri-City Herald
What am I expecting to expect?
“What to Expect When You’re Expecting is pretty much what you’d expect.“ Peter Howell Toronto Star
I love the reviews of the Dictator. I feel like SBCohen must be pretty happy with himself.