I’m not sure exactly why I went to go see Peter Berg’s Battleship. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know what appealed to me about the movie: aliens, Alexander Skarsgard, explosions, Liam Neeson, and intergalactic water battle, just to name a few points. But, as the reviews first trickled and then flooded out (only water pun, I swear!), it became ever so clear that Peter Berg’s latest attempt at a blockbuster was just not good. And as if that wasn’t enough, I was even warned by one of my own, a Banterer who questioned if Battleship‘s box-office flop status was actually deserved.

Well, I decided to forget all those naysayers and see it for myself. And now that I’ve seen Battleship, I can definitively declare, that sadly yes, it really did deserve its box-office flop status. Battleship just wasn’t good. Not at all.

When trying to decipher what exactly went wrong in the movie, it’s hard to point to just one thing. The acting was bad (side note: after the awfulness that was John Carter, perhaps it’s time for Taylor Kitsch to consider a new career?), the plot was widely underdeveloped, with questions of, “What? Why?!” plaguing every new twist, the dialogue was laughable, and, to top it off, the movie was difficult to follow. Other than the massive explosions, I’m not sure I can declare one other good thing about this movie. And even then, the explosions were fun, but nothing new. I mean, Battleship is not the kind of movie that is presenting a new type of summer blockbuster explosion: they’ve been done before, and will continue to be done.

So yes, there was a lot of bad, and not enough good to remotely make up for it. I will go on record and say that I did quite enjoy Rihanna’s debut as an actress. Not that she was good, not at all, in fact. But instead she was bad in the way that bolsters summer blockbusters. You know the kind, the blockbusters that are so bad that they are almost good (a la Deep Blue Sea).

Why of why couldn’t Battleship have been bad in the good way?! On the heels of the release of Dark Shadows, it looks like we’re 0 for 2 on the blockbuster front. Prometheus: I’m really rooting for you. Battleship: you’ve let me down.

SKIP IT.