Subject: Review: Battlefield Earth (2000)

From: Michael Dequina <[email-masked]>
Date: 18 May 2000 18:20:33 GMT

_Battlefield_Earth:_A_Saga_of_the_Year_3000_ (PG-13) no stars (out of
****)

Although trailers for _Battlefield_Earth_ have been playing in
moviehouses since December, the reaction has remained constant over the
last few months.  With each new audience for each different film at each
different time of day, no less than thunderous peals of derisive laughter
greet the sight of John Travolta done up like a ten-foot-tall alien beast
bearing talons and a moptop of dreadlocks.  The television ad campaign,
bearing the ludicrous catch phrase "Get Psychlo!" (Psychlo being the name
of the monstrous alien race), has done little to change the negative
public perception.

That said, I must give credit to the Warner Bros. marketing people.  As
poor as all the ads look, they don't even begin to touch upon the
unfathomable awfulness of _Battlefield_Earth:_A_Saga_of_the_Year_3000_
(the film's full, onscreen title).  Not only is it hardly presumptuous to
declare it the worst film of the year 2000, it is no exaggeration to call
this wretched piece of incompetence one of the worst films ever made.

As stated by the complete title, the film takes place in the year 3000
A.D., where the planet is in post-apocalyptic ruins after being taken
over by the evil alien race from the planet Psychlo a thousand years
prior.  "Man is an endangered species," as an insanely large text card
states, with most of the remaining humans being held prisoner and/or
enslaved by giant, grotesque Psychlo.  A certain few, however, live
freely as primitives in secluded mountain villages.  One such person is a
bright, resourceful young hunter (Barry Pepper) who may very well be the
one to lead the human race to winning back its freedom from the alien
invaders.

That summary could've been written by anyone who had just seen
_Battlefield_'s trailer, which makes clear what is completely incoherent
in the complete film.  _Battlefield_ tells a simple, simplistic story,
but somehow director Roger Christian and screenwriters Corey Mandell and
JD Shapiro have made it virtually incomprehensible.  After twenty or so
dead-end minutes of people wandering through an obviously
matte-composited wasteland comes the first of the showcase action
scenes--which are all haphazardly cut and slow-mo'ed to oblivion. 
Pepper's doozy of a character name--Jonnie Goodboy Tyler--is not made
evident until about halfway through the film.  But at least his name has
a consistent pronunciation, unlike that of Terl (Travolta, who also
produced), the "head of security" for the aliens' Earth operation;
sometimes it rhymes with "girl" and other times it rhymes with "Carol." 
However you say his name, Terl devises some sort of evil scheme against
his superiors after being passed up for a cushier job (yes, even aliens
get frustrated by career stagnation), but it beats me just how exactly
it's supposed to work.  Even so, his plan is not nearly as nonsensical as
the humans' plan for revolt.

Travolta has called Terl "the definitive evil character."  With creature
designer Patrick Tatopoulos failing to come up with a menacing look for
the Psychlo--their appearance looks ridiculously slapped together from
bits of cheap leftover Klingon and rastafarian costumes, with a touch of
bondage gear thrown in--it's up to Travolta to turn Terl into a
convincingly vicious, truly hateful villain.  But his smug, jokey take on
the character is a complete miscalculation.  A similar approach worked
for him as the bad guy in John Woo's _Broken_Arrow_, but there that flip
cockiness fit the quirky character.  Terl is supposed to be pure,
unironic evil--not so much a character to hate as one to feel genuinely
threatened by.  With Travolta punctuating nearly every passage of
dialogue with a ridiculously overdone "evil" cackle, it's little wonder
that Terl--and, consequently, the film--can never be taken seriously.

However, the filmmakers take _Battlefield_Earth_ extremely seriously,
and their reverence of the source novel--and its writer, Church of
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard--blinds them to the fact that the
story they're trying to adapt is nothing more than a pulpy genre piece,
not an "important" work of literature.  Hence, the film is riddled with
laughable and utterly baffling moments of self-importance: a crowd is
inspired to give exuberantly savage grunts and barks--by flowery
statements about the value of freedom; pseudo-profound ruminations about
destiny incongruously pop up during a big prison break sequence.  People
who treat lines like "We're gonna blow up their planet.  Needless to say,
we're gonna need more supplies before we do that" with grave seriousness
are in no position to condescend to their audience, but that's exactly
what Christian does.  At one point, Jonnie is shown reading a
reproduction of the Declaration of Independence, but so ignorant are we
movie audiences that he has to then flip to a page that says "Declaration
of Independence" in huge type.

Usually a subpar sci-fi film can at least fall back on its visuals, but
_Battlefield_Earth_ can't even count that as a saving grace.  Forget the
not-so-special effects--Christian and his crew can't even get the basics
right; the rubbery Psychlo creature design is just the tip of the
iceberg.  Matte paintings are not only obvious, the image compositing is
shockingly inept; the three-dimensional actors are clearly standing in
front of flat backdrops.  The would-be futuristic weaponry and gadgets
don't look quite as state-of-the-art as stuff you'd find on a toy store
shelf.

Catch Travolta on any talk or magazine show, and you'll see him all
smiles over  _Battlefield_Earth_.  Exactly why is up for question.  Given
the fact that he's tried to bring to the project to the big screen for
nearly twenty years, the obvious read is that he's beaming with pride
that it finally came to fruition.  But after seeing the  final product, I
cannot help but think that maybe, just maybe, he's laughing that he was
able to sucker otherwise sensible people into pouring tens of millions of
dollars toward making such an unspeakable, inexcusable waste.

Michael Dequina
[email-masked] | [email-masked] |
[email-masked] | [email-masked]
Mr. Brown's Movie Site:  http://welcome.to/mrbrown
CinemaReview Magazine:  http://www.CinemaReview.com
on ICQ: #25289934  |  on AOL Instant Messenger: MrBrown23

________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk!  For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.