With “The Avengers” dominating the box office so far this spring, it is easy for moviegoers to forget about the lesser publicized movies like “Battleship.” And with its ungainly villains and implausible action sequences, maybe it would be better to let this movie quietly go to airplane viewing and pay-per-view.

A so-called homage to the classic board game, “Battleship” is little more than a waste of over $200 million spent making the film. Upgraded from the simple pencil and paper game to an alien invasion that intends to wipe out the human race, “Battleship” seems to be eerily similar to “Transformers.” Except for the fact, of course, that not one, but two battleships have saved the Earth from what one scientist calls an “extinction event.”

Starring Taylor Kitsch as Alex Hopper, a stubborn ne’er-do-well who later joins the Navy and becomes a lieutenant, the film also features Brooklyn Decker as Sam Shane, the woman for whom Hopper breaks into a convenience store and steals a chicken burrito, and Alexander Skarsgård as brother Stone Hopper. Pop-star Rihanna also briefly appeared in the movie, but was little more than a big name in a small movie, considering her number of lines could probably be counted on two hands.

The film starts off with the common sci-fi theme of sending signals into space to contact life on other planets. However, 30 minutes into the movie, we still don’t see these aliens, and even when they first do appear, they are heavily masked so that we don’t see their faces until the second half of the movie.

These aliens are not even the interesting kind. First of all, they barely look different from humans. Then, when we finally do see their faces, all they do is snarl and look dumbfounded. Additionally, besides blowing up buildings and anything else powered by technology, there’s not much that these aliens do.

Although this film claims to be based off of the board game, viewers probably won’t be able to make the connection unless told so directly. Yes, some of the elements of the game are there but cloaked under intense visual effects and action sequences.

The only redeeming qualities are the great visual effects and the catchy soundtrack, which bring the film up to “popcorn movie” status. If you’ve got nothing better to do and have already seen those other action flicks, you might as well head over and watch “Battleship.”