It's 2006. NASA is beaming a signal to a "Goldilocks planet" in hope of establishing contact with extra-terrestrial life. They're using a communications array on Oahu to beam a signal into space, which is then relayed off a "deep space" satellite, which is only over Oahu once every 24 hours, and then shot towards the Goldilocks planet.

At the same time, the Hopper brothers- one a successful Naval Officer, the other a screw up- are on Oahu. The screw up has a brush with Johnny Law while trying to impress an admiral's daughter. The screw up joins the Navy to be like his brother.

Fast forward six years. The screw up is now the Weapons Officer, O-3, on USS John Paul Jones. The good brother now has command of USS Sampson. And after six years of beaming messages into space, somehow not only did the radio signal get the, I'm guessing, hundreds of light years to the Goldilocks planet, it must have messed up their TV reception too, because the aliens are on their way. And they're pissed!

RIMPAC is going on in the background. It's six years later and the same admiral is in the same job. Screw up boy is getting up the courage to ask the admiral for permission to marry the daughter when he has an altercation with the CO of a Japanese Aegis destroyer. This causes the admiral to be none too pleased. Screw up is out of the Navy as soon as RIMPAC is over.

Meanwhile the aliens keep trucking' towards earth. Until one of the five ships they sent, hits a satellite in earth's orbit and breaks up,the pieces of which hit Hong Kong. The other four ships land in the waters off Hawaii. Not wanting to interrupt good training and completing various TORIS/TFOM cards and NMETs, the admiral sends three ships to investigate the alien landing. I mean, why would the admiral want to be there if alien contact is about to be established. He's got training to do dammit! So he sends three destroyers, the Sampson, the JPJ and guess which Japanese ship? After the ships detach, the aliens put up a Gungan force shield isolating the three ships and Hawaii from the rest of the world.

The destroyers approach the area. They see an alien structure. This is when the movie loses all credibility. I mean really, I can buy the faster than light messages and alien travel. I can buy a guy who gets arrested somehow not only becoming an officer, but becoming a department head in 6 years, instead of 8. But they lose me here. They can see the alien structure, but they can't track it with SPY. Ludicrous. Ruined the whole movie for me.

The good Hopper decides to direct the JPJ to send a boarding team. The boarding team consists of the screw up, Rianna (however you spell her name) and a Navy Chief. They get to the alien structure. The Aliens decide to reveal more of their ship. The good Hopper gets antsy. He decides to sound his ship's whistle (that'll show them!). The aliens respond with their own, more powerful whistle.

That's when the United States Navy starts the first interstellar war. The good Hopper gets pissed at this use of nonlethal force and directs JPJ to engage the alien craft. Which they do, and get their CO and XO killed in the process. But I have to say, the aliens show remarkable restraint. They get the JPJ to stop firing, and they stop firing. In fact, they only target the JPJ's weapons. We see throughout the movie that the aliens using only the minimum amount of force necessary to achieve their goals. The aliens' evil intent is so ambiguous that at one point in the movie the director has the screw up Hopper look into an alien's eye, some sort of mind-meld occurs, and screw-up boy learns of their dastardly plans.

So anyway, the good Hopper manages to get his command sunk from underneath him. The Japanese CO manages to get his command sunk from underneath him. And the senior officer present? Yeah, it's screw up Hopper. Henceforth, he'll be known simply as Hopper.

Hopper fights the urge to ram the aliens, picks up survivors, and with the help of his former nemesis, the Japanese CO, they manage to play battleship with the aliens. The Japanese CO uses NOAA buoys to track the aliens by tracking their wakes and shoots Tomahawks at grid coordinates he expects the aliens to be at. The Tomahawks are targeted by calling out grid coordinates like "E-15" or "I-12." The Tomahawks fly into the alien ships "blind."

The admiral's daughter is a physical therapist who is helping an Army LtCol recover from losing both legs. They're on a hike on the mountain where the NASA signal originated when the aliens show up. The aliens are there to try to use the array to phone home. Yes, the ship they lost was their communications ship. They have no other alternative than to use the very equipment that was used to signal them to call for back up. Of course, the limitation is they only have one chance per day to actually complete the call home. Well, the daughter manages to contact the JPJ and her boy toy and tell him of the aliens' plan. What does Hopper do? If you think he launches a Tomahawk strike at the communications array you would be totally wrong. He instead decides to fight it out with the aliens some more, losing his ship in the process.

Having no other alternative (and let that be the real lesson for the bring back the battleship crowd) Hopper leads the survivors to the Mighty Mo. That's when a bunch of creepy old dudes just start appearing randomly on the ship. The crew of Navy vets and survivors manage to get the battleship underway. It seems battleship museums not only have 600,000 gallons of fuel, they also have projectiles and powder onboard. Since the USS Wisconsin is a short distance away, I decided to make mental note of it in case the ZA happens.

So the Mighty Mo rounds the bend to shell the communications array when they run into the final alien ship. The mother ship. The Gungan shield ship. Hopper exploits the aliens' desire to use minimal force, executes a handbrake turn in the BB, and destroys the alien ship, causing the shield to drop, and allowing the admiral to send F/A-18s to hit the communications array.

The rest is just admin clean up. Hopper asks the admiral for permission to marry his daughter, and the movie ends shortly thereafter.

What the Navy gets right is the Sailors. They act like Sailors. Not the main characters per se, although Rianna does act like a GM2. But the bit parts and the extras do a pretty good job. One Sailor figures out the aliens are reptile-like, something they end up taking advantage of. The way he figures it out it classic Sailor. The dialogue between extras is classic Sailor dialogue. And the creepy old dudes, who are really battleship vets, are very obviously real Sailors. The Army LtCol is pretty cool. He's a bit stiff, but he's not a professional actor, and he does make the character very likable. Truthfully, the best part of this movie are the folks who aren't professional actors by trade. And the CGI, although a bit inconsistent in a few details, was very good when it came to making the Missouri look like it was underway.

The rest blew goats.

Now pardon me while I go drink to try to forget.