Some are more interested than others, but few are strongly opposed to an alien invasion movie. Likewise, naval warfare action is a genre with certain appeal. Then there is the feature film adapted from a board game, a ridiculous concept but one that could potentially be embraced. The problem is when a film is all three of these things and carries the title Battleship, people will snicker. Universal Pictures and Hasbro found that out the hard way this year, when their $209 million movie clearly intended to be a four-quadrant summer blockbuster struggled to gross $65 M in North America.

The performance drew comparisons to other epic box office flops, from 2008's Speed Racer to Disney's John Carter from two months earlier. The year has not been kind to Taylor Kitsch, the "Friday Night Lights" star who got leading man status in three major motion pictures this year, a feat he seems unlikely to repeat given the costly losses on John Carter and Battleship. (The third, Oliver Stone's Savages, grossed its more moderate budget but still has a ways to go until profitability.)

Battleship casts Kitsch as Alex Hopper, a down and out 26-year-old so determined to get a chicken burrito for a pretty girl (swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker) that he breaks into a closed convenience store and steals it. The ensuing arrest causes Alex's older brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgård) to insist he join him in the United States Navy. We jump to a random and completely inessential sequence that finds Alex missing the potentially game-tying penalty shot in the RIMPAC Cup championship soccer game against Japan.

Next thing we know, Alex is a Lieutenant but one who is about to be kicked out of the Navy for his bull-headed antics. All of a sudden, every U.S. government agency is put on alert after five spacecrafts of alien origin are spotted fastly approaching military bases in Hawaii. Expecting a discharge just moments earlier, Alex now finds himself the unlikely highest-ranking officer aboard the U.S.S. John Paul Jones, a destroyer whose location off the coast puts it right in the middle of the action.

With communications knocked out, Alex is the one calling the shots and having to make bold decisions in the face of an immensely destructive, heavily armored, technologically superior alien race which hones in on Earthlings' power sources and weaponry. Meanwhile, on the islands, Alex's girlfriend and would-be fiancée Sam (Decker) teams with a double amputee retired Army veteran (Gregory D. Gadson) and a technical expert (Hamish Linklater) to do anything they can to help out.

Battleship bears almost no resemblance to the board game on which it is supposedly based. That can hardly come as a surprise to anyone who's played the two-player game that consists of guessing coordinates in an effort to sink your opponent's secretly-arranged fleet. Milton Bradley first published it in pencil and paper form as Broadsides in 1943, with the board game following in 1967. Since then, there have been electronic talking versions and video games, but not a single incarnation has ever involved extraterrestrials.

Obviously, this film arrives in the mold of earlier Hasbro adaptation Transformers. Based on the nearly $3 billion earned from that franchise, it was not a bad idea. But whereas Transformers made some use of existing mythos and characters, Battleship was starting from scratch, with nothing more than a familiar title and the notion of ships firing shots at one another to go on.

Casting cripples this production. Kitsch lacks the charisma of a traditional hero and the charm of a more comedic one. Making her acting debut, Grammy-winning singer Rihanna is even less convincing as a petty officer gunner than Brooklyn Decker is as a physical therapist. Skarsgård demonstrates he has inherited his father's unpredictable project selection but not the commercial payoffs that Stellan has enjoyed. Meanwhile, Liam Neeson is reduced to the periphery as Admiral Shane, the father of Decker's character, a limited role that allows the Irish actor to save face, a privilege not extended by some of his other bad high-profile recent films.

In spite of its generic design, tackily assembled cast, and plainly commercial ambitions, Battleship is at least watchable and coherent, which is more than can be said for some of its ilk, i.e. Transformers. Director Peter Berg (Hancock, The Kingdom) is not the hack and egomaniac that Michael Bay has repeatedly proven himself to be. Berg and sibling screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeder (Red) don't allow this film to exist merely as a showcase of grandiose visual effects and frantically-edited combat action. It's not that Battleship is far more sophisticated than that, it just has the decency to retain interest in its human characters and give them more to do than simply being surrounded by metal and explosions.

Wasting no time, Universal released Battleship today as a single-disc DVD and as the two-disc Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet combo pack reviewed here.

Blu-ray and DVD Details 2.39:1 Widescreen Blu-ray: 5.1 DTS-HD MA (English), 5.1 DTS (French, Spanish) DVD: Dolby Digital 5.1 (English, French, Spanish) Both: Dolby Surround 2.0 (Descriptive Video Service) Subtitles: English for Hearing Impaired, French, Spanish Not Closed Captioned; Extras Subtitled Release Date: August 28, 2012 Suggested Retail Price: $34.98 Two single-sided, dual-layered discs (BD-50 & DVD-9) Blue Keepcase in Embossed, Holographic Cardboard Slipcover Also available on standalone DVD ($29.98 SRP) and Amazon Instant Video

VIDEO and AUDIO

Classless or not, Battleship looks and sounds great on Blu-ray. The busy visuals pose no challenges for the 2.40:1 widescreen picture. The 5.1 DTS-HD master audio is as active and immersive as you'd expect and hope, placing you in the middle of out-of-this-world situations regularly with sharp directionality and plenty of impact.

BONUS FEATURES, MENUS, PACKAGING and DESIGN

The all-HD slate of extras begins with an alternate ending previsualization (7:33). Director Peter Berg introduces this animatic, which, less abrupt than the film's actual ending, features no dialogue, but bombastic score and sound effects.

"All Access with Director Peter Berg" (2:19:31) "enhances" playback of the film with sporadic picture-in-picture videos. Few, far between, and a lot quieter than the film's soundtrack, they give us raw footage from filming, rehearsals, on-set playfulness, and behind-the-scenes shorts. We also get some full-sized reflection from the director. There's got to be a better way to get this content than watching the whole movie again for the occasional pop-up. Unless you just saw the movie in theaters and want to see it in a new way, this feels like a waste of time.

A "U.S.S. Missouri VIP Tour" (20:10) takes us around the "Mighty Mo", the climatically featuring battleship that is stationed as a museum ship at Pearl Harbor. Curators and veterans share information with Peter Berg and us.

"Preparing for Battle" (11:09) is the set's only mention of the board game, with cast and crew sharing their experiences and the film being discussed in relation to its source material. From that, this moves into standard making-of territory, sharing some of the endless footage no doubt captured during production.

"All Hands on Deck: The Cast" (11:40) pours praise onto each of the leading actors, who speak highly of their cast mates, their advisors, and the real-life veterans who join in the fun. The piece benefits from a lot of candid production footage.

"Engage in Battle" (6:58) consists of two shorts: "Shooting at Sea" and "All Aboard the Fleet." Both of them touch upon the thrills and challenges of such unusual filming locations.

"Commander Pete" (5:46) focuses on Peter Berg's direction, with comments from cast and crew as well as many looks at him at work and play (his nutritional proselytizing falls somewhere in between).

"The Visual Effects of Battleship" (11:30) lives up to its title, dissecting and celebrating Industrial Light & Magic's work on the film. The design of the aliens, their ships, and the armor are all given some thought here.

Finally, there is a Second Screen feature you can get through Universal's pocket BLU app. You are welcome to watch the movie an additional time with this on your computer or phone, but I didn't.

Like other Universal Blu-rays, this one has a BD-Live section, tutorials, and touches such as uHear and D-Box.

Identical to the disc sold on its own, this set's DVD includes "Preparing for Battle", "All Hands on Deck", and "Engage in Battle."

The DVD and, after a long load, Blu-ray opens with ads for E.T., Werewolf: The Best Among Us, Death Race 3: Inferno, Dead in Tombstone, Battleship: The Video Game, Fandango, and The Five-Year Engagement. The Blu-ray follows these with a static screen promoting Universal's second screen technology.

On both formats, the menu places grids over ordinary screen-filling movie clips. The Blu-ray supports placing bookmarks, but does not resume playback after being powered down, which is annoying.

Not wanting the film to get overlooked as it was in theaters, Universal has fitted this combo pack with an embossed cardboard slipcover that is extensively holographic on all four sides. The one in-case insert supplies your combination UltraViolet/digital copy authorization code.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

For mindless popcorn fare, you could do worse than Battleship. For cinema, though, you could do much better. This big, dumb doomsday movie unmistakably intended to do big, dumb summer business and failed tremendously. In its defense, it looks worse than it is and the flimsy association to a familiar board game does more harm than good. I'd rather revisit this than any of the three Transformers movies and at least a few other recent alien action movies I can recall. Faint praise, I know, but it's the best I can give Battleship with clear conscience.

Universal's combo pack delivers an hour of extras plus the film-extending All Access viewing mode. But all of that probably matters less to you than the top-notch presentation and the set's four-format versatility. Though not one you are likely to wish to own, the movie could surprise you slightly after all the jokes and pans it drew. It may not be a good film, but it isn't quite the bottom-rung production you expect.

Buy Battleship from Amazon.com: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UV / DVD / Instant Video