Subject: Review: Battlefield Earth (2000)

From: Max Messier <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 May 2000 18:48:13 GMT

filmcritic.com presents a review from staff member Max Messier.
You can find the review with full credits at
http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/2a460f93626cd4678625624c007f2b46/31d858b804fd3a7e882568dd00060db8?OpenDocument

Battlefield Earth
A film review by Max Messier
Copyright 2000 filmcritic.com

There are two things the American film industry should avoid at all
costs.  One is letting an ambitious actor convert one of his or her
favorite novels into a feature film.  Two is never greenlight a sci-fi
film starring John Travolta.  To wit, we present the disaster that is
Battlefield Earth.

A science-fiction opus starring the Barbarino of the Actors Guild,
Battlefield Earth should be shown only at maximum-security prisons when
a prisoner is tossed in solitary for bad behavior.  Sci-fi is always a
tricky beast: Tight script, a good director, an ensemble cast of decent
actors, and the ability to suspend even the most difficult of
disbeliefs.  Battlefield Earth fails at achieving even one of these
attributes.

Here’s the “plot.”  The year is 3000.  Mankind has been become an
endangered species thanks to the conquest of a race of aliens called the
Psychlos (sounds like either the latest clown act from Cirque de Soleil
or a white rap group).  A small band of humans dwell in radioactive
caves located in the Rockies in fear of the “demons” who dwell in the
cities below.  The Psychlos are strip-mining the Earth for its resources
and Terel, played by Travolta, is the head of security for the
mining/slave base located in Denver.

A young rogue named Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, played with dramatic flair by
Barry Pepper, ventures from the safety of the caves into the city to
uncover the truth about the “demons.”  He is promptly captured and taken
to the alien base.  After several attempts at escape, Johnnie is placed
in the middle of an underhanded subplot of Terel’s, involving
circumventing gold from an exposed vein in the Rockies to his own end.
Jonnie, assumed leader of the mining slave group, then manages to attain
all Psychlo and human intelligence through a learning machine Terel
forces him to use.  Then the story just runs along until Jonnie teaches
the rest of the humans the basics of trigonometry, the Bill of Rights,
how to use a machine gun, and how to fly a Harrier jet.  The whole mess
concludes with a big, loud, obnoxious gun-and-plane battle that had me
praying for the end credits.

Roger Christian, the director of this lumbering beast, must have rented
Dune, Blade Runner, Planet of the Apes, Independence Day, Stargate,
Beastmaster, the Airwolf episodes, the “V” miniseries, The Matrix, and
The Omega Man... and decided to steal every scene he could for
Battlefield Earth.  Christian even shoots every scene in a weird Dutch
angle titled left or right for every frame of the movie!  And every
scene in the movie ends with a middle wipe -- really.

The Psychlos reminded me of a cross between Jamaican basketball players
with bad teeth and bloated hands and Klingon extras working the Star
Trek convention circuit.  Travolta’s acting hasn’t been this bad since
The Experts or maybe Perfect.  Jonnie Goodboy Tyler evolves into William
Wallace with lines like “You can have your freedom if you fight!”  Then
there's the script: The film just never convinces you that the plight of
Jonnie in teaching his fellow humans to fight and “take back the planet”
would be a difficult task to achieve.  Why?  Because Terel provides all
the necessary tools to incite a revolt -- for no particular reason
beside the fact that “humans are stupid.”

Terel may be right, you know.  Humans made this movie.

Director: Roger Christian
Starring: John Travolta, Forrest Whitaker, Barry Pepper, Kim Coates,
Richard Tyson
Screenwriter: Cory Mandell
Producers: Jonathan Krane, John Travolta, Andrew Stevens

Rated: PG-13

1 star out of 5 stars

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Christopher Null - [email-masked] - http://www.filmcritic.com