I found this in the $1 USD bin and was prepared to hate it, but it was actually a lot of fun.
This movie was originally titled American Battleship, but they were forced to change title by that other Battleship movie. This is a low-budget sci-fi pic partially filmed on an actual U.S. battleship (the USS North Carolina, now a museum ship), with lots of stock footage and CGI added.
The basic plot is that the USS Iowa is in the Pacific, completing a 'good will' farewell tour with a skeleton crew while simultaneously being retrofitted by a museum team to its WWII appearance. (And there's a SEAL team as security.) Suddenly, word is received that an entire U.S. carrier battle group has been sunk in the northern Pacific. Did the North Koreans do it? Were the Chinese involved? Where did they get the stealth weapons and capability to knock out electronic systems?
As you can guess, the "pre-electronic" USS Iowa is soon called upon to defeat the mysterious aggressors!
Mario van Peebles plays the part of the Iowa's captain; Carl Weathers is a Pentagon general; Johanna Watts plays a naval officer who is secretly engaged to the captain; Nikki McCauley plays the cute, nerdy museum historian. The entire cast does a surprisingly good job, and makes the film enjoyable. Even the SEALS were well performed.
If you are one of those people who looks for flaws in movies, you'll either love or hate this one – frankly, they've slapped any stock footage they could get into here, and a plane can amusingly morph from moment to moment, nobody is wearing the right medals, and the ships are not always the right ships.
The special effects are… low budget but mostly effective. Even the scenes where the SEALS get inside the enemy vessel are decent.
There's a rousing musical score that adds to the fun of the show.
Flaws? The Iowa's crew is really skeletal (what, no extras were available?). Nobody should be on deck near the turrets when the main guns are firing. Lots of U.S. ships and planes get sunk or shot down, and still everyone is all smiles at the end (I know, it's just a movie!). Shouldn't the U.S. submarine force still be viable?
Bottom line is that this is a fun, silly movie that lets you cheer for the good guys.
It would be difficult to game, though, without a lot of rethinking of the situation.
IMDB: imdb.com/title/tt2175927
