Rihanna’s first major movie role is getting mixed to negative reviews from film critics. Battleship, a big budget action film inspired by the classic board game, has been called derivative and soulless. Although MSN Movies UK’s critic has some positive things to say about the pop star’s performance. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Battleship, a board game with no characters or plot, might seem like odd source material for a movie. Then again, recent blockbuster franchises have sprouted from toy lines (“Transformers,” “G.I. Joe”) and a theme park ride (“Pirates of the Caribbean”), so perhaps it’s not much of a stretch. Early reviews of “Battleship,” which opens in some foreign countries this week and May 18 in the U.S., indicate that although the film does indeed offer some semblance of a narrative (briefly: humans vs. aliens on the high seas), the storytelling takes a back seat to the explosions.

In the Birmingham (England) Post, Alison Jones says director Peter Berg is channeling Michael Bay, and she characterizes “Battleship” as ”’Pearl Harbor’ by way of ‘Transformers.’” Jones adds that “No action movie cliche remains unmilked in a movie so jingoistic it practically bleeds red, white and blue.” Berg, however, does have a sense of humor, and “his decision to just embrace the machismo” earns the film some bonus points in her opinion.

MSN Movies UK also invokes the ghost of action movies past, calling Berg’s film “a long, loud and very spectacular actioner that does on the sea what ‘Independence Day’ did in the skies.” But because the film has “an obsession with artillery,” most of the characters fall flat: “it’s hardly surprising that ‘John Carter’s’ Taylor Kitsch gets lost in the crush as a disgraced officer shocked to find himself in charge of the human resistance.” At least pop singer Rihanna has fun as “a spunky munitions ace.”

Click here to read more.