American Warship

This movie may have come out at the same time as the movie "Battleship," but it had a lot more thought behind it than the bigger-budget movie based on a '60s board game.

First off, ignore the cast and special effects, and consider the plot: The USS Enterprise carrier group is sunk in minutes by an unknown enemy after its electronics are disabled by an "EMP weapon," barely giving them time to send out a mayday. Only a large debris field is found by satellite. The USS Iowa is in the area on her farewell goodwill tour, and happens to be nearby when an island whose ownership is disputed by North Korea is attacked by missiles and destroyed by the same unknown enemy.

The Iowa engages the enemy, which seems to be not only Stealth-enabled, but actually invisible to the naked eye, though they do appear when they launch their missile attacks. The Iowa is also attacked with the EMP weapon, but thanks to the ship's legacy 1940's no-computer technology, and the presence of a skilled team of naval historians on board to restore the Iowa to her WWII condition for her new destiny as a floating museum, she is still able to fight on in her not-inconsiderate WWII level of combat readiness.

As the captain, crew (and hesitant Admiral) attempt to maintain contact with the enemy until reinforcements arrive, they try to figure out who is behind the attacks.

The CG effects are pretty bad. The acting is not much better. But the idea that the low-tech -- yet formidably-armed -- Iowa might be the best possible fighting platform against a technologically-advanced enemy is a concept worthy of better treatment. Certainly better than "Battleship" provided.

It's a shame you can't give less than 1/10, because this is the biggest steaming pile of guano I've seen in a long time (and I just watched "No Body Found).

Appalling cliché-ridden script, pathetic acting, woeful special effects, about the only thing that I can guarantee if you watch this is that it will probably make your eyes and ears bleed.

As others have, it was obviously knocked together to try and get some business of the back of "Battleship", but the budget for that was $200 million. There's actually no budget for this on IMDb, perhaps they're too embarrassed to say just how cheap it was to make, because I've seen film students make better quality material.

Avoid at all costs.

This, I laughingly use the term "film", is a disgrace to the Iowa class Battleship!!! There is nothing special about the special effects. I have seen cartoons with better story lines. The acting was a joke, and the director....director, couldn't direct a grade school play let alone a movie. The only positive in this fiasco was some shots of the USS Iowa from the air. There were some very nice shots of the historical battle wagon. The only reason this movie was made was to advertise the fact that the "Big Stick" is on her way to being turned into a museum. Though i am not sure that making a terrible film was the best way to get that point out to the general public. But what can you do?

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

There can be many bad things to say about the film after watching Act of Valor and Battleship over the past few months. To list a few: stereo type navy seals, poor CGI and special effect, inaccurate uniform on non-essential roles, poor research on weapon systems on board...etc. However given the lack of budget for this movie it is an understandably foreseeable outcome.

Overall I think it can be worst, especially if you have seen Moby Dick (2010) in the past. At least the movie is shooting on board the real battleship rather than some mock up set inside a studio. For that I'd given the movie an extra star.

Rating 2/10. Pretty bad movie, special effect and storyline, however at least you get to see the real Iwoa Class Battleship.