American Warships

hjki

This is one of worst flick I have ever seen. Even cartoons are way better than this. Is it some kind of joke ? perhaps, Yes. No special effects, utterly boring story line this makes this flick awful. Common guys, even the films from nations who's names are not known are better than this. When I saw the title, I was speculating that, I would see some good sea battle however all in vain. Aliens shown in this flick are too spooky. Don't expect any real acting even if you bother to watch this. Please don't waste your time on this I as did (sadly)

Piggybacking off the domestic box office disaster "Battleship" as much as they can, The Asylum released their low-budget knock-off entitled "American Warships." Leave it to these mockbuster makers to swoop in on the dead carcass and pick off all the flesh left on the bone after the brutal slaying it suffered. The original title of the film was "American Battleship" until Universal Pictures intervened demanding a name-change among other things. The Asylum did what they had to do to get the finished product released and told the studio they "appreciate the publicity." "American Warships" begins when a mysterious attack is launched by undetectable ships off the coast of civilization. The U.S.S. Ohio and its crew are brought out of retirement to find out who's responsible for the attacks before the different countries of the world begin World War III. They soon discover that the unknown force is alien. The officers and crew of the ship must find a way to stop them before they can call in intergalactic reinforcements to complete their mission to take over the Earth. This movie once again takes a rather serious direction and doesn't come off as too campy. It took a while to get going, with most of the action in the first 45 minutes or so depending on ships shooting at each other. Things really get interesting when the Navy SEALS board one of the alien ships to see what they're up against. We finally get some of the typical action regular viewers of Asylum movies are used to. The good guys chase the bad guys through some sort of tunnels or hallways while shooting lasers and rifles at each other. The visual effects and CGI are par for the course based on the last few Asylum films. They're just above adequate but light-years ahead of where they used to be. The aliens still suffer a bit visually from blue-screen pasting and CG work, but they look unique. These aliens aren't the garden variety "War of the Worlds" or "Alien" looking ones we get so many times in these types of low-budget films. One thing that really helps the film is it was shot on an actual Navy battleship. Filmmakers used the decommissioned U.S.S. North Carolina as a stand-in for the Ohio. However, the room supposedly in the Pentagon looked like it was shot in a small rented out hotel conference room with sheets put over the entrances. That kept you grounded in the world of the Asylum enough to where you didn't forget what you were watching. Just like every great Asylum film, we were treated to appearances by actors who have been off the Hollywood radar for a while. Mario Van Peebles stars as Captain James Winston and Carl Weathers stars as General Hugh McKraken. They put their all into the roles they were given and act circles around most of the other cast members in the movie. "American Warships" isn't the best Asylum film ever put out. It'll still give fans of these types of movies something to laugh at on a boring Saturday night. I hoped for a bit more cheese, which strangely enough people usually don't want when they watch a movie. However, an Asylum film without the cheese is like a cheeseburger without the cheese. Did I use the word cheese enough in this paragraph?

Some individuals have not looked upon this movie very favorably for many reasons. However, I'm retired military and can relate favorably to much of what was depicted in this movie. Having electrical circuits, electronics, and all things run by computer chips can be destroyed by EMP or electronic magnetic pulse unless they are hardened. It is also true that a nuclear air blast will usually do the trick. One reason the USS Iowa was able to still function was it was a WWII ship and did not have a nuclear engine and didn't have to rely on electronic circuitry to fire it's guns, although it initially did have it but didn't need it operate its guns. Some folks got turned off by the science fiction part of it. But it was presented naturally and puzzled the crew, the National Military Control Center and the President. If there was any fault that center was only manned by a Lt Gen, the Secretary of Defense but no one else. You would usually have 4 star generals of the Army, Air Force, Marces and a Fleet Admiral as well the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Adviser. Regardless the acting was very good, except for the Admiral that was aboard. I felt that actor was a little over the top worrying too much that the Iowa was a museum and a warship. The movie was great and well worth time to watch.

In all of my stupidity, I thought this was the big motion picture that was out in the cinema so I bough the DVD. Honestly, I have seen a lot of movies, some better then others, but this is the biggest crap ever. Even the gunshots are fake and the actors move their guns back and forth like they shoot and CGI is added later to make it look like they fire it.... I had a deja vu feeling back when the movie "The day the earth stood still" came out and in the same year that awful rip off "e Day the Earth Stopped" appeared. Same thing as this, only 4 years later. The pure waste of money that went into this..... An alarm bell should have gone off when I saw the cast line up.....all formerly successful movie stars that are looking to score another buck....regardless the script. Shame on them.

I try not to make it a habit of down-grading the SyFy movies, as there are a few out there that are watchable. However, they have done a lot of cheap and badly written and acted movies, and for me American Warships is one of their worst recent examples. It does look cheap for starters, with choppy editing, scenery/settings that doesn't look that authentic(including the ship actually) and very slapdash at best special effects that further suffer from bad texture and heavy over-use. The script is often aimless with cheesy one-liners, the music is often over-bearing and at a sluggish tempo and the characters are little more than underdeveloped clichés(I have yet to see a SyFy movie character that I actually identify with). The story goes at a dull pace and doesn't generate any sort of thrills or fun, everything also feels very predictable in that you anticipate what's happening next constantly. And looking at the logic here, I would genuinely be surprised if SyFy did any kind of research before doing the film whether geographically and scientifically. Apart from a pretty likable Johanna Watts, the acting is poor, either phoned-in or too eager to please. Overall, a waste of time. 1/10 Bethany Cox

This movie reminded me very much of those 1950's science fiction movies I grew up with. Poor acting at time laughable special effects a plot so full of holes you could steer a battleship threw but still enjoyable for what it is a bit of fun science fiction made on a tight budget. Although the plot lines are similar I actually enjoyed this move far more than "Battleship" which I felt over relied on CGI. The Alien ships where simple and didn't take 5 minutes just to change it's self into some type of transformer. Look if your looking for a summer block buster with massive CGI your going to hate this movie however if you just look at it as bit of science fluff it's enjoyable and quite frankly a damn site better than many science fiction movies made on the cheap.

It's general low rating notwithstanding, I actually enjoyed watching "American Warships." Recently I watched the movie "Battleship." It's a big budget blockbuster that has roughly the same storyline - an old American warship forced into battle with aliens. "American Warships," however, is much more exciting and even more "believable" - to the extent that any movie of this kind can be believable. Here, the primary warship is the World War II vintage USS Iowa, commanded by Captain Winston (played by Mario Van Peebles.) The Iowa is about to be retired and turned into a museum, and it's on its way to the US from a good will visit to South Korea, when first a South Korean island and then the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier group (also in the area) is mysteriously destroyed. Was it the North Koreans? The Chinese? No one knows, and the Iowa sets off to investigate, while the United States prepares to fight World War III. The attacks continue on various military targets, the tension ramps, a nuclear attack by the US on China (and a return attack by China on the US) is imminent, with only the Iowa (who have now figured out what's happening) standing in the way. The attackers are aliens, trying to goad the world into a nuclear war so that they can take over. The aliens also seemed far more threatening here than in "Battleship." Basically I liked this. It's pretty exciting and tense all the way through. Van Peebles was not too bad as the Captain of the Iowa, and while having a WWII era ship beating powerful aliens in "Battleship" made little sense, in this there was a plausible (sort of anyway) explanation as to why that type of warship could succeed in such a battle - the aliens basically knocking out integrated electrical systems to facilitate their attacks (systems that weren't around in World War II) so that the Iowa had the ability to survive the aliens' most powerful advantage. Now, there are some problems I admit. First, by the time this was over I was getting very tired of the "Star Trek" type references. We heard about cloaking devices, and ships that had to "de-cloak" before they could fire. There were references to phasers and Klingons (not to mention the fact that the aircraft carrier destroyed was the Enterprise, and the main American ship was the Iowa - where Captain Kirk was supposedly born.) All that was a little too much in your face. I liked Van Peebles, but I thought the rest of the performances were perhaps a bit uneven (and I wasn't impressed with David Polinsky as Admiral Hollis.) I also didn't think that there was any reason for having a romance between Winston and Lt. Bradley (Johanna Watts.) I also found it passing strange that the aliens, who supposedly wanted to provoke a nuclear war, would destroy two of the American bomber groups that had been sent off to be prepared to attack China? Isn't that defeating their own purposes? At least I couldn't figure that out. The closing captions of the movie suggest that this is based on a congressional act passed in 2006 retiring the Iowa but making sure that it would remain battle ready, even as it serves as a museum. So the question is: "why keep an old warship battle ready?" This is the supposed answer. Overall, though, I thought this was a pretty exciting and enjoyable movie, much better than its reviews would suggest. (6/10)

American Warships is a thoroughly enjoyable movie from start to finish. ** Disclaimer ** I saw this movie in a theater setting which is quite a different experience from watching it at home alone on Syfy. I attended the "world premiere" of the pre-lawsuit-verdict American Battleship in Wilmington, NC, where it was filmed. Despite living in Wilmington, I was not an extra in the movie nor do I know anyone who is in the movie or worked on the movie. I have, however, toured the USS North Carolina, one of the stars of the movie. ** Spoiler Alert ** I unabashedly spoil the movie with this entire review. One of the things I most appreciate about American Warships is how the director and most of the actors play the movie completely straight even though it is clearly a parody of blockbusters (like, hmm, Battleship?). Mario Van Peebles is an absolute gas as the captain of "The Big Stick" and he unflinchingly delivers some hilarious lines (like the Milton Bradley-esque "They are NOT going to sink my battleship!"). On a more serious note, I also appreciated that his relationship with Johanna Watts never emphasized its biracial aspect. They are just two foxy people who have the hots for each other (although the writers and actors do whimsically play on the whole commander/subordinate/master/slave kinky sex angle. Actually, I'm exaggerating a bit there, but I have your attention now). What can I say about the special effects? Um, they don't obscure the storyline? Despite seeing it on the big screen, I could never see the wires. Of course, the whole damn point of the story is that low-tech can sometimes beat high-tech -- so there! The writers do have a bit of fun with the low tech/high tech contrasts with some utterly ridiculous plot lines – including rigging up a VHS (or was it Beta?) camcorder because the newer electronic components are destroyed by the aliens' EMP weapon. For the most part the actors play their roles earnestly with very few sitcom "laugh lines". The only notable exception is April Wilson's quippy ship doctor whose brusque dismissal of a too-far-gone wounded sailor had the audience howling. Also, watch for Mandela Van Peebles, who is given one thing to do in the movie, which he repeats several times. In fact, they may have only filmed him in one scene and simply replayed it three or four times. In order for this movie to work as a parody, it has to hit every cliché in the alien-invasion-military-action movie genre. American Warships delivers. Last command for the captain before retirement? Check. Aging vessel no longer fit for duty? Check. If the captain can't defeat the aliens, nuclear war will begin _in minutes_? Check. No one believes the attacks are caused by aliens? Check. This movie could easily spawn a drinking game where each introduction of an action movie cliché requires taking a drink – but for this movie, you are advised just to take a sip only. Otherwise, you'll never make it to the second half of the movie. No review of this movie is complete without mentioning Carl Weathers' massive calves. In one of the opening scenes, we see Carl Weathers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, jogging back to his (presumably suburban Washington, DC) home, but you simply can't take your eyes off his colossal calves. While Carl Weathers' face has aged considerably since his Apollo Creed beat Rocky Balboa to a bloody pulp (twice!), he is still an intimidating figure (which makes some of his later scenes with the less-than-intimidating Elijah Chester as the Secretary of State all the more funny). All in all, if you can only see one movie this summer that features a battleship fighting off an alien invasion, make it American Warships.

I could write a long review about everything awful that but simply put probably one of the worst films i have ever seen. Some films are so bad they are actually quite good but there is nothing positive about this film. The Navy SEAL's in Act Of Valour acted better than anyone in this film. the special effects are so bad it isn't even funny.This so reminds me of another rip off Battle of Los Angeles. Why bother i feel like i've lost ninety minutes of my life. Remakes are one thing but to blatantly rip off another film so soon after it was released and to put so little effort into it is a waste of time. There are so many films out there worthy of watching this is not one of them.