"Battleship": Be prepared for a loud theater experience

(CBS News) Hasbro's naval-combat game "Battleship" has been transformed into a big-screen, action adventure movie, hitting theaters Friday.

Peter Berg ("Friday Night Lights") directed the film and its stars: Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, Alexander Skarsgard, Liam Neeson and Brooklyn Decker.

"Battleship" follows what unfolds across the seas, in the skies and over land as the planet fights for survival against aliens from a distant land.

Reviewers are mixed on this one, with some praising the film for its entertainment value. Others, though, aren't so pleased. Words such as "stupid" and "dumb" are being tossed around by top critics.

"Battleship" has a 36 percent overall rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the film review aggregator site.

But one thing is for sure: if you go, be prepared for a loud and noisy theater experience. That's the one common thread being heard from film critics.

See what the critics are saying:

New York Post gave it 1.5 out of 4 stars: "All I expected out of "Battleship" was a stupid action movie. It's more than that, though: It's also a stupid comedy and a stupid sci-fi yarn. It makes "Top Gun" look like the work of Orson Welles. At least the Tom Cruise movie remembered to cast actual actors."

San Francisco Chronicle: "It's loud, it's large, it's stupid, and its best gag involves a chicken burrito. It features Taylor Kitsch wearing many more clothes, and maybe one more facial expression, than he did in 'John Carter.'"

Washington Post gave "Battleship" 3 out 4 stars: "'Battleship' is an invigorating blast of cinematic adrenaline. Deftly directed by Peter Berg ('Friday Night Lights'), from a script by brothers Eric and Jon Hoeber ('Red') that adds muscle, sinew and heart to the skeletal source material, the resulting film is an enormously entertaining amusement-park ride. Yes, it's a bit preposterous, not to mention loud. But it's also brisk and viscerally thrilling, with a genuine surprise or two -- including a plot twist that manages to brilliantly incorporate the game's essential DNA of blindly shooting at invisible targets."

New York Times: "For most of its length this film bears no resemblance to the game, but eventually a moderately ingenious way is found for the fight against the aliens to at least suggest the old you-sunk-my-battleship war of wits. It's a nice touch in a movie that doesn't have many of them but will make millions of dollars anyway."

Rolling Stone: "'Battleship' is all noise and crashing metal, sinking to the shallows of Bay's Armageddon and then digging to the brain-extinction level of the Transformers trilogy."

Film critic Roger Ebert: "The film is in the tradition of the 'Transformers' movies, also based on Hasbro games, and you get the feeling that Hasbro showed director Peter Berg some Michael Bay movies and told him to go and do likewise. To his credit, 'Battleship' is a more entertaining film than the 'Transformers' titles, because it has slightly more fully fleshed characters, a better plot and a lot of naval combat strategy."

The Associated Press: "'Battleship' is big, dumb fun that knows it's big, dumb fun and enthusiastically embraces its big, dumb, fun nature."

Watch below as Teri Okita sits down with the actors, including pop star Rihanna, who makes her movie debut: