In the film, the crews of a small group of warships are forced to battle against a naval fleet of extraterrestrial origin in order to thwart their destructive goals.

Six years later, Alex is a lieutenant aboard the USS John Paul Jones and in a relationship with Sam, a physical therapist working with wounded veterans.

While Stone is a model officer commanding the USS Sampson, the rebellious Alex, while showing plenty of potential, is facing a disciplinary discharge.

John Paul Jones disengages to recover Myōkō’s survivors, including Captain Yugi Nagata, while alien drones destroy Oahu’s military bases.

Hiking near the communications array, Sam and retired US Army lieutenant colonel and double amputee Mick Canales discover the aliens' presence.

Its armored suit proves impervious to small-arms fire but is obliterated by the destroyer’s 5-inch gun, and the captured alien's helmet reveals their eyes are sensitive to sunlight.

Ashore, Sam, Mick, and Cal recover his spectrum analyzer, using it to radio John Paul Jones that the aliens will contact their planet and most likely call for reinforcements when the facility’s satellite is in position in four hours.

As night falls, Nagata suggests using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tsunami warning buoys around Hawaii to track the warships without radar; this plan works and allows John Paul Jones to destroy two of them.

Alex and Nagata shoot out its bridge windows with sniper rifles, blinding its crew with sunlight and allowing John Paul Jones to destroy it.

The destroyer then attempts to target the communications array, but is sunk by drones launched from the alien structure emitting the force field; Alex, Nagata, and several other sailors barely escape.

The floating structure is revealed to be a giant mothership, but Missouri disables the force field, allowing Admiral Shane to scramble fighter jets from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.

[4] Filming was set to take place in Australia's Gold Coast in 2010, but changed location due to a lack of Australian government tax incentives and a high estimated budget of $220 million.

[20] The film marks the reunion between former co-stars Kitsch and Jesse Plemons, who previously worked together on Berg's television series Friday Night Lights.

Sailors from assorted commands in Navy Region Hawaii assisted with line handling to take Missouri in and out of port for a day of shooting in mid 2010.

Director Peter Berg stated: Working with composers often is a really frustrating experience because you speak a different language and, oftentimes, they take two or three jobs, at the same time.

[citation needed] The event was attended by director Peter Berg, actors Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Alexander Skarsgård and Rihanna.

The site's critics consensus reads: "It may offer energetic escapism for less demanding filmgoers, but Battleship is too loud, poorly written, and formulaic to justify its expense – and a lot less fun than its source material.

[42] Megan Lehmann of The Hollywood Reporter thought that the "impressive visual effects and director Peter Berg's epic set pieces fight against an armada of cinematic clichés and some truly awful dialogue.

"[43] Empire magazine's Nick de Semlyen felt there was a lack of character development and memorable action shots, and sums up his review of the movie in one word: "Miss.

"[44] Many reviews criticized the "based on a board game" concept driving the film, although some, such as Jason Di Rosso from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National, claimed the ridiculousness of the setup is "either sheer joy or pure hell – depending on how seriously you take it", while de Semlyen "had to admire [the film's creators] jumping through hoops to engineer a sequence that replicates the board game.

[48] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film one out of four stars, and he commented "Battleship is all noise and crashing metal, sinking to the shallows of Michael Bay's Armageddon and then digging to the brain-extinction level of the Transformers trilogy.

He wrote, "The creative team behind this ocean-bound thriller decided to fill the narrative black hole with a few ingredients all but absent from today’s summer tent poles – namely mystery, nostalgia and a healthy dose of humility" and described it as "an unlikely mix of Independence Day, Pearl Harbor, Jurassic Park and The Hunt for Red October".

[50] Giving it a B+ grade, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly said, "For every line of howler dialogue that should have been sunk, there's a nice little scene in which humans have to make a difficult decision.

[52] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, praising the climax as "an honest-to-God third act, instead of just settling for nonstop fireballs and explosions, as Bay likes to do.