Subject: Review: Battlefield Earth (2000)

From: [email-masked] (Ian Waldron-Mantgani)
Date: 9 Jun 2000 16:21:13 GMT

Battlefield Earth      *

Rated on a 4-star scale
Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre)
Released in the UK by Warner Bros on June 2, 2000; certificate 12; 118 
minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio 2.35:1

Directed by Roger Christian; produced by Elie Samaha, Jonathan D. Crane, John 
Travolta.
Written by Corey Mandell, J.D. Shapiro; based on the novel by L. Ron Hubbard.
Photographed by Giles Nuttgens; edited by Robin Russell.

CAST.....
Barry Pepper..... Johnny Goodboy Tyler
John Travolta..... Terl
Forest Whitaker..... Ker
Richard Tyson..... Robert the Fox

I sometimes get angry, looking at the smug cynicism of organisations like the 
Golden Raspberry Awards and www.thestinkers.com, which exist to discuss bad 
movies. After a while they forget about their purpose, and just rip into 
everything they can, regardless of the quality. It takes a movie like 
"Battlefield Earth" to remind us why they were formed in the first place; 
it's a big-scale disaster that brings back memories of all the shoddy 
space-opera crap that came out when I was a kid in the 80s. Watching those 
grainy tapes in the early days of VHS, I wondered what the same crappy 
special effects and drab colours would look like on the big screen. Now I 
know.

"Battlefield Earth" is based on a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the 
new-age religion Scientology, but if the book contains any moral messages or 
symbols, then they've been lost in the transition to the screen, in favour of 
dimensionless sci-fi. The story takes place in the year 3000. An alien race, 
the Psychlos, has taken over Earth, and man is an endangered species. The few 
humans who are not enslaved in manual labour camps roam the countryside, 
hunting for food and making weird noises, like cavemen.

The hero of the movie is one of these Neanderthal chaps, Johnny Goodboy Tyler 
(Barry Pepper), who announces, in his own grunting way, that he is going to 
find the Psychlos, arrange a revolt against them and reclaim the planet. When 
his plan gets underway, Johnny comes to the attention of Terl (John Travolta) 
and Ker (Forest Whitaker), two chiefs of staff in the Psychlos' security 
command. They try to stop him by keeping him busy, having him mine gold for 
them in some kind of secret corrupt operation.

Humans grumble, aliens snarl, and then there's an action climax that attempts 
to rip off the Death Star attack in "Star Wars" but looks more like an Atari 
game. Throughout everything, plot holes and contradictions abound. At the 
start of the movie, everyone has to wear breathing apparatus resembling big 
lines of snot, because Earth air is unbreathable -- people are even executed 
by being deprived of their tubes. Next thing you know, Terl comes up with his 
idea of having humans mine for gold, because they don't need breathing 
apparatus. Eh? How about the fact that the Psychlos are obviously a bunch of 
incompetents who can be defeated by rebellious cavemen, and yet they 
apparently conquered all human armies in nine minutes? Why doesn't Terl have 
a clue about human levels of intelligence or behaviour patterns, when he has 
a computer programme full of details about our languages, history, biology 
and technology? Why does Terl want to mine gold, when it is a worthless 
substance to the Psychlos? Why does Johnny seize Terl's gun, make a rousing 
speech about how human comrades should fight for freedom, then return the gun 
and go back to work??

The production values are just as inexplicable. Travolta and Whitaker are 
virtually unrecognisable underneath pounds of rotten makeup, they talk like 
drunkards telling jokes, and they wear codpieces that restrict their 
movements. And everything is seen in tilt shots or slow motion, through a 
pall of bluish mist that makes everything look grubby. Although special 
effects have improved dramatically in the last twenty years, those in 
"Battlefield Earth" are a throwback to worse times -- the soundtrack is made 
up of distorted echoes, and the visuals are a collection of blurred model 
shots and weird-looking props scattered around cheap sets.

The movie is so outrageously, spectacularly, unbelievably bad that we stare 
at it with some sort of appalled curiosity. It fails on so many levels that 
it's fascinating, although not so much that I'd sit through it again. 
Remember all that "Who Shot JR?" merchandise? Maybe one day they'll also have 
T-shirts and bumper stickers declaring "I SAT THROUGH BATTLEFIELD EARTH!"

COPYRIGHT(c) 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
Please visit, and encourage others to visit, the UK Critic's website at 
http://members.aol.com/ukcritic