Subject: Review: Battlefield Earth (2000)

From: "Shay Casey" <[email-masked]>
Date: 18 Jun 2000 18:41:13 GMT

* out of ****

Year: 2000.
Starring John Travolta, Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker, Kim Coates, 
Sabine Karsenti, Richard Tyson, Marie-Jose Croze, Kelly Preston.
Screenplay by Corey Mandell and J.D. Shapiro.
Directed by Roger Christian.
Rated PG-13.

"Battlefield Earth" is the best comedy of the year. It has to be. The
other prospect is just too horrifying to consider.

Bad Movie Syndrome struck me again, so after witnessing how much
"Battlefield Earth" has been proclaimed a train wreck in both critical
and popular circles, I felt the masochistic urge to see the disaster
first-hand.  Is it as bad as advertised? Oh yes, very much so. The
plot is incomprehensible. The acting is atrocious. The special effects
are mediocre.  The action is dull. The implausibilities are
legion. The dialogue is cringe-inducing. The whole package is funny
when it wants to be serious and irritating when it wants to be
funny. I don't even want to continue reviewing this movie; I'd like to
purge the atrocity from my mind as soon as possible, but you probably
want to read my thrashing in all its sarcastic glory, so here it is:

The premise is basically a rip-off of "Planet of the Apes," only minus
the apes and philosophical discussion, and plus a race of evil aliens
from the planet Psychlo. The year is 3000, the Psychlos have conquered
Earth, and the human population has been enslaved. Only a handful of
humans escaped to radiation-rich areas to escape the aliens; they live
out their lives in fear. One man, Johnny Goodboy (I know, I know)
Tyler (Barry Pepper), ventures to the outworld and is captured by the
Psychlos. There he confronts the Psychlo head of security: a big,
ugly, Klingon-looking creature called Terl (John Travolta). Pressed
into slavery, Johnny vows to lead a revolution and take the planet
back. Meanwhile, Terl is faced with his own problems: He has recently
learned that he's stuck living on Earth (which he hates) for the rest
of his career because he pissed off his boss by sleeping with the big
man's daughter. He decides to give Johnny knowledge of the Psychlo
language and technology (this is where the plot gets ridiculous . . .)
so the "man-animal" can lead a mining expedition into places the
Psychlos can't go. Terl then plans to keep the mined gold for
himself. Of course, his plan doesn't work.

So many things wrong with this movie -- where to begin? How about with
Travolta, whose Hollywood clout brought about this, the cinematic
version of Scientology guru L. Ron Hubbard's sci-fi novel? Early
previews for "Battlefield Earth," with constant shots of a
makeup-laden Travolta cackling like Lex Luthor, had me (and several
audience members) remarking, "What the hell is Travolta thinking?" The
movie did nothing to stem such remarks.  All that ridiculous cackling
he did in the trailers is in full force here: Terl cackles after
nearly every line, and so does every other Psychlo. Of course, this
makes every scene hilariously overwrought, no more so than when the
script clumsily stumbles into political commentary. The Psychlos are
probably supposed to be some kind of satire of corporate America, but
CEOs generally don't laugh maniacally after denying pay raises to
their employees. ("You were going to be promoted -- but now you're
not!  Fwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!")

It's no big surprise Terl loses to the humans -- he's an idiot. He
breaks every kind of supervillain rule in the book. He underestimates
his enemies, assuming he'll win just because he's smarter. (He uses
the word "leverage" like some sort of Scientologist mantra.) Not
content to go the James Bond villain route of explaining his plans to
the hero, he hooks him up to a machine that gives him knowledge of all
the Psychlos' language and technology. (Why this machine is even
around in the first place is beyond me.) He then appears shocked that
Johnny points a gun at him. No wonder this guy never got his
promotion.

The plot inconsistencies are too numerous to mention. Why do the
Psychlos build an Earth base in which both they and the human slaves
must wear little breathing apparatuses to survive? How come the
Psychlos are wasting their time mining for gold when the doors of Fort
Knox are wide open? How in the world did all those fighter jets
survive sitting in a hangar for 1,000 years? And how do all these
previously brain-dead cavemen learn to fly them so quickly? There's a
whole lot more to scratch one's head about in "Battlefield Earth."
Bring a scorecard to track the plot holes.

Director Roger Christian shoots "Battlefield Earth" in the most
distracting way possible, tilting nearly every shot sideways for no
discernible reason.  All the characters appear to be standing on the
walls, and it's awfully difficult to watch a movie when you must tilt
your head just to watch ordinary passages of dialogue. The action
sequences are atrociously edited, every one turned into an endless
slow-motion parade that drains all potential excitement. Are these
things really so hard to construct? My respect for supposed
"lightweight" action directors has grown by leaps and bounds after
witnessing in "Battlefield Earth" how badly an action sequence can be
shot.

This movie is an absolute headache. It's not just the shot selection
and editing; the movie, quite frankly, makes no sense. For most of
"Battlefield Earth's" running time, I just didn't know what was
happening. It didn't have anything to do with me finding the events
stupid or illogical (though they certainly are) -- I really had no
idea what the hell was going on. When I pieced the plot together
later, it didn't look any better. Here's how much of a disaster this
is: "Battlefield Earth" is already the worst movie of the year, and
it's going to take something really, really inept to top it.  The only
thing we can take comfort in about the film is that no one will be
suckered into joining the Church of Scientology because of it. In
fact, I'd think that Hubbard's cult would want to distance themselves
from this bomb as fast as possible.

That'll teach me to give into Bad Movie Syndrome again.

-reviewed by Shay Casey

For more reviews, go to http://www.geocities.com/sycasey/movies.html