Subject: Review: Battlefield Earth (2000)

From: "Ronald O. Christian" <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 May 2000 19:38:25 GMT

Battlefield Earth
John Travolta, Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker
Directed by Roger Christian
Writing:  Who knows?

If a major religion decides to sink nearly an hundred million dollars
into a movie version of a scifi novel, couldn't they at least have
picked a decent author?

I must confess, I don't really know anything about Scientology, and
although I've seen the book Dianetics on the night table of various
roommates in college, I've never read it and have absolutely no idea
what's in it.  I walked past the bright yellow Scientology sign in
downtown Portland without ever having the urge to find out more about
it.  I'm dimly aware that there is some controversy surrounding the
funding of the film, but don't feel qualified to talk about it.

But God, what a movie.  I do not mean that in a positive way.  How do
movies like this get made?

Before I start, I'd like to say that I absolutely do not believe, as
reported by other reviewers,  that Scientologists have been assigned
to break the kneecaps of anyone giving a less-than-favorable review of
this turkey.  From what I've read so far, they'd have to take out
practically every professional film critic, a move that surely would
have been reported in the popular media.

Nor do I believe the story that "hollow-eyed Scientologists are
passing out free tickets on streetcorners so that the movie will have
a good opening weekend".  First of all, I haven't seen anyone doing
any such thing, and secondly, all three of the screens in which it was
playing Saturday May 13 at the multiplex in Hillsborough, Oregon were
barren.  (I know this because I didn't catch the theater number at the
ticket counter and had to ferry the family's popcorn and drinks
through each one until I found them.)  If they *are* passing out free
tickets, they've been profoundly unsuccessful at it.  And if Regal
Cinemas thought Battlefield Earth would have the kind of opening as,
for instance, Gladiator, they're now profoundly disappointed.

There's no decent way to say it.  This movie sucks.  There really is
absolutely no reason why a reasonable person would waste his time
seeing it.  Really horrible dialog, laughable makeup, surprisingly
un-special effects for the purported $90 million cost of the film, and
a plot that leaves all thinking beings going "Hunh?"

My daughter was bored out of her skull, and kept asking "is the movie
about over?"  Now, to put this in perspective, she *liked* Supernova.
She saw Batman and Robin *twice*.  She sat thorough all 3 hours of
Titanic and wanted to see it again.  But about 20 minutes into
Battlefield Earth she was done.  I don't know how many times I'll have
to sit through Dinosaur to make it up to her.

John Travolta puts in the performance of his life.  I mean that
literally.  He seemed to be determined to put every ounce of his not
inconsiderable talent into single-handedly saving this film from being
the most expensive direct-to-video release ever.  If you absolutely
must see this film, (as I did -- my wife, a rabid "saturday night
fever" fan,  forced me) watch the scenes with Travolta and snore
through the rest.

But this is not unusual for Travolta, post-comeback.  His performance
was the best, make that the only, thing watchable about "Broken
Arrow".  You have to give him this -- he plays larger-than-life
villains to absolute perfection, and his "Terl" is a masterpiece.  But
just as a masterful performance by Tim Curry in Legend couldn't save
that film, Travolta has been given too great a task to pull
Battlefield Earth out of the muck.

How can I say this?  It was a horrible experience.  If the theater had
paid *us* eight bucks a seat to sit through this piece of crap, I
would still feel cheated.

My wife owes me big time.  And on the day before Mother's Day.  Ouch.

		Ron
www.europa.com/~ronc
"CBS News could make a simple change and save themselves millions
of dollars.  Turn Dan Rather's teleprompter around."
-- Oliver