This film is the reason why it took me so long to post a new review here. I had planned on reviewing Battlefield Earth for more than a month but having seen it before, I knew it was going to be two hours of absolute hell to grind through. Occasionally, I'd work up enough nerve to start watching it, but could only get through a few minutes per sitting. So I'd put the film away and go off to do something more enjoyable, like scrub the toilet or pluck nose hairs. It has taken me over a month to finally finish re-watching this epic disaster and here is the result.
After hitting megastardom via his roles in Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Urban Cowboy, John Travolta's career was down in the dumps for about a decade, his most successful film in that down period being that annoying talking-baby movie. Fortunately, life-long fan Quentin Tarantino had the wisdom to resurrect Travolta's career and cast him in Pulp Fiction, the film that made everyone remember that Travolta can be an outstanding leading man. The next year he starred in the hit Broken Arrow, then Get Shorty, another commercial and critical success. After a string of so-so (but commercially profitable) movies, he starred in another big hit, John Woo's Face/Off. Travolta, back on top of Hollywood, now had the power to push forth almost any story his heart might desire. Eventually, Franchise Pictures stepped in, Franchise at the time following the idiotic business model of catering to movie stars' pet projects. One may note that many of the worst films ever made started out as a movie star's pet project. The business world equivalent of Franchise Pictures would be a bank that only gives loans to crack addicts. So, what story did Travolta want to bring to the screen in 1999, now that he had the resources to get started?
Yes… Battlefield Earth, the juvenile, meandering, nonsensical epic sci-fi novel written by L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard, of course, is most famous for founding Scientology, reportedly as a money making scheme, according to several of his sci-fi writing contemporaries. Don't worry though, as this story, despite being as goofy as all hell, has nothing to do with that goofy as all hell religion. If Travolta wasn't a Scientologist though, I doubt he'd have ever bothered to read that dumb book, which was personally sent to him by Hubbard. Thanks to this movie I actually skimmed over about 50 pages of that waste of paper before tiring of its gaping plot holes and ludicrous dialogue. Unfortunately, the film version makes the mistake of being faithful to the dumbest parts of the book while adding some of its own stupidity to boot.
The film opens with a blurb about how it is the year 3000 and Earth is ruled by a mean alien race called Psychlos. These Psychlos travel around space searching for planets to enslave and mine for gold, which turns out to be the rarest and most valuable resource in the galaxy. The message ominously ends with a note that humans "are on the verge of extinction."
As we zoom in and fly over some mountains we get more information in cheap green font, the sort of font that was standard on computers in the early eighties (they started filming this crap in '99, remember). Anyway, we are informed that "Man is an endangered species". I guess that was added to clarify the earlier vague point about humans being "on the verge of extinction".
Next we see some humans in a rough-looking camp built out of straw and wood, living the way cavemen and/or hippies did. They are primitive-looking in that Hollywood-ish sort of way: they wear well-fitted leather, have fashionable dirt stains, uncombed (but well-conditioned) hair, and pristine teeth. An old man, who seems to be the leader of this particular band of humans, mutters to a worried young woman about the young man she likes who wandered away from camp. He calls the young man a foolish wild spirit, also known as a "greener". Soon enough, foolish actor Barry Pepper... I mean, "wild spirit" Johnny "Goodboy" Tyler, shows up on his horse right before the gate is shut for the night. Yes that's really his name. The movie isn't real big on revealing the names of its characters, so I'm just going in and calling them by their listed name right away. If not, three-quarters of this review would have me saying, "and the third guy from the left did this" and "the smallish but not long-haired fourth guy did that".
The girl waiting for him, Chrissy, gives Johnny the bad news that "The gods took your father in the night". It turns out Johnny had been out in dangerous territory searching for medicine for his dying father. Johnny takes the news poorly, as he shouts out "Noooo!" This takes place in slow-motion to make things look even cornier. I now notice that every scene in the film is tilted anywhere from twenty to forty-five degrees. This is only one of many idiotic visual techniques used by Director Roger Christian. It should be noted that Christian was something of an apprentice to George Lucas, having worked as an assistant director on the tepid The Phantom Menace. He certainly picked up some of George's techniques if not the reasons why or when they should be used.
In the big community cave that night, restless Johnny moans about how there are probably better places to live, where food is more plentiful. The folks here seem to fret about food, though everyone in the tribe looks fit enough to compete in the decathlon. The old man warns Johnny that the "demons will follow us back", which reveals that either the outskirts of camp are filled with violent monsters or they live next door to Oakland. Johnny dismisses the old man's stories as superstitions. Then he jumps around the fire like a coked-up monkey while asking if anyone has actually seen a demon. Not sure about that, but I do know they've seen a dork.
The next day Johnny sits atop his horse, determined to leave the village in search of "greener" pastures, hence the nickname. Chrissy wants to join him but he tells her to stay put for now. Since humans are stuck back in a primitive existence in the year 3000, I guess women's lib will have to start itself up all over again. Thankfully I won't live long enough to witness the second coming of Gloria Steinem. Someone in the village blows a big horn for some unknown reason then the scene ends via a middle-wipe a la Star Wars. With the cheap fonts, low-quality slo-mo, and now the use of ancient middle-wipes, I'm guessing Roger Christian graduated film school in the seventies and never watched another film he didn't personally take part in.
Out in the wilderness Johnny's horse goes crazy for an unknown reason and falls in cheap slow-motion (e.g. about 3 frames per second). Like its rider, the horse has the habit of going into slow-motion when taking any sort of action. Perhaps the horse wouldn't have fallen over if Earth weren't tilted at a 35-degree angle; God, this tilted-look shit is wearing thin (but it isn't going to stop, EVER!).
Johnny walks into a moss-covered dinosaur, a remnant of what looks like a miniature golf course. I doubt a cheap wire-and-plastic dinosaur would survive a thousand years still in one piece but there will be greater such discrepancies to get picked on later. Eventually figuring out that it isn't a monster, Johnny enjoys a hearty laugh. I'm laughing but only to keep from crying as this film has still just barely begun.
Next, a pair of wandering "hunters" named Carlo and Rock sneak up on Johnny. Carlo keeps making the hilariously silly "Oh, oh!" sound I first heard in the caveman movie The Missing Link. Rock's distinguishing features are obesity and foul-mindedness. Carlo tells Johnny they have actually seen gods and they join together to visit the ruins of the nearby big city. Carlo babbles in what oddly sounds like an old Jewish accent, reminiscent of Judd Hirsch's way, way overboard accent in Independence Day.
In the city, which I think is Denver, and not only because the place is dead after 5pm, the three men walk past some statues which Carlo thinks were people who were punished by the gods. It isn't the statue Carlo, it's the audience that's being punished. Inside the ruins of a shopping mall, Johnny stupidly bangs his face into some plexiglass. This is to show he's never seen glass before but I think even the most primitive animal would know enough not to bump into this dusty, dirty pane of glass dotted with water. Anyway, we get another middle-wipe to end scene which only serves to remind us of Star Wars, one of those decent films I used to watch.
While they eat some random meat over a fire, Johnny explains how he's a "greener", in that he's one of those people who believe "The grass is greener on the other side". Odd how this phrase would survive a thousand years in the human lexicon but that's a minor problem in a film packed with major ones. Johnny describes the young woman he left behind at home then Rock says he must be stupid for doing leaving her. He also states he'd like a go at her if he has the chance. Johnny wants to beat Rock up but thankfully an alien enemy shows up and fires cheap green laser effects at the men, causing them to scatter and end their moronic dialogue.
Carlo gets shot in the back by a green blip (Oy vey!), which leads me to believe they're being attacked by the little ship from the old videogame Defender. Man, that game was awesome; then again, anything is awesome compared to watching this movie. Johnny and Rock keep running away in lousy looking slo-mo while we listen to random loud noises. Johnny's horse gets shot by the Defender blip and goes down while Johnny already gives us his second slo-mo "Noooo!" of the film. Chunky Rock also gets himself as we see a silhouette of the attacker, who looks like a Rastafarian on steroids. Eventually Johnny gets shot too, which causes him to fall through a pane of glass. And then another… and another. Okay, now it looks like he's running through panes of glass on purpose. Okay, now he's going down… wait, one more pane to break… okay, now he's down, I'm pretty sure.
After another middle wipe to teasingly remind us of a good film, we see Johnny and the others trapped behind bars on an aircraft taking off. The craft takes them inside a big domed city filled with a purplish atmosphere, the sort of place Prince might build if he had just a little more money. We hear some of the alien Psychlo guards mumble in their Psychlo language. The humans are handed some ugly things to put on their noses for breathing, as only their alien captors can breathe the purplish air. The devices look like a joke novelty item, something you'd put on to make people think you have long strings of snot hanging off your face. I didn't catch whether the devices were described in the book this way, so whether the screenwriters or L. Ron Hubbard get credit for this bit of stupidity I haven't determined.
A screen blurb reveals that we are in the "Human processing center - Denver". Carlo breaks loose and runs far enough to get his dumb ass shot in the back with the green blip again. I forgot to mention it's in that awful slo-mo again. Just remember, if anything resembling any sort of action happens, it happens in slo-mo. Johnny grabs a weapon from one of the guards and shoots him dead. We now get a good look at the Psychlo captors and boy are they a sight to see, with random dreadlocks, floppy clown hands and big platform shoes that look they were stolen from Gene Simmons. Johnny starts running away and the Psychlos would run right behind him, if they were able to run in those giant shoes. Unsurprisingly, most instances of Psychlos walking or running are done off-screen.
Johnny runs through what looks like a prison area before tripping and falling at the feet of the person responsible for this mess of a movie, John Travolta, playing local mining supervisor 'Terl'. Future Oscar winner Forest Whitaker is also there, playing Terl's assistant, 'Ker'. Ker looks like the ugliest Cabbage Patch kid in history with his samurai hairdo-gone-wild and beady yellow contact lenses. Anyhow, Terl grabs Johnny by the throat and carries him all the way out to where the guards remain standing, still stuck in their platform boots, I guess. From Johnny's point of view, Terl mumbles in Psychlo-speak but unfortunately for the audience, the language is translated into English. Terl asks the guards, "Who is responsible for this man-animal?" the first of many, MANY unnecessarily hyphenated terms that you can blame L. Ron Hubbard for.
One of the guards tells Terl that Johnny killed a guard then ran off. Terl refuses to believe that story, asking "Are you out of your skull-bone?" Don't know about him Terl, but as a 'man-animal', I can say my 'skull-bone' is currently throbbing with pain. Terl refuses to believe that a human is smart enough to operate a weapon so he commands the guard to hand his gun to Johnny. For some reason, Travolta speaks in that same precise, ultra-urbane accent last used by villains from 1930's murder mysteries. Johnny obligingly shoots the guard dead, prompting Terl and Ker to laugh maniacally like Dr. Evil.
Back in the prison we are treated to scenes of Johnny and other captured 'man-animals' getting sprayed with water by the Psychlo guards. Like everything else this is shown in slow-motion. Tragic music plays but with little droplets of water now seeming to gently bounce off their half-clad, tanned bodies, the slow-motion actually makes this scene look closer to a teaser for a gay orgy video. Finally, someone has proven that not everything looks more dramatic in slow-motion… if only someone would've told that to Roger Christian. Anyway, Johnny grabs the guard's hose (no, not THAT hose) and turns it back on him. Unfortunately, the Psychlos, with their huge boots and ugly hands, don't look as sexy with slow-motion water hitting them, so the scene ends with another middle wipe.
