Battlefield long, boring and just plain stupid
Battlefield Earth * (out of ****)
A film review by Michael Redman Copyright 2000 by Michael Redman
In my mid-teen years, I had a horrendous re-occurring nightmare. Behind the wheel of a car, I was driving down a straight road in the middle of a desert. No scenery except the horizon line and the converging parallel lines of the highway. No matter what I did, the view didn't change: travelling but not getting anywhere. Each time I awoke in a sweat, terrified.
You don't have to be Carl Jung to understand that dream. Powerless to make changes, trapped in a boring situation with no hope of rescue, this is the stuff of nightmares whether we are asleep or awake.
This is exactly how you will feel 15 minutes after "Battlefield Earth" begins. For all of its flash and style, L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction epic is the earliest and best entry for the dullest summer film of 2000. Dull "and" stupid.
In the year 3000, the Psychlo aliens have ruled our planet for 1,000 years. Humans either work as slave labor in mining operations or live as barbarians. There's no hope. The future is bleak.
Then the Psychlo make a mistake and capture feisty Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper) who organizes a revolution against Chief Of Security Terl (John Travolta) and the alien race.
It's an archetypal post-apocalyptic plot full of promise. Considering some of the talent involved and all the millions thrown at the screen, it's difficult to see how it could have failed so miserably. But it does.
The story is so full of holes that it falls apart within minutes of the opening credits. Are we really supposed to believe that after a millennium of looking for gold, the Psychlo never discovered Fort Knox? Or that fighter planes are still in pristine condition after all that time -- and gassed up? Or that the cavemen become such expert pilots in seven days that they can easily down the advanced alien ships? Or that the Psychlo spy cameras somehow don't notice that their slaves are missing for days?
Travolta prances across the screen hamming it up for all he's worth and is almost entertaining. Almost. The rest of the actors are wooden mannequins trying not to laugh while delivering lines that no person -- "man-animal" or not -- would ever utter.
Some of the film _looks_ good, but it also looks so familiar. A race of large hulking ape-like creatures has taken over the world while our cities lie in ruin. Sound like something Charlton Heston might be in? The Psychlo look like overweight Klingons in gear from "Dune". The final air battle between the Air Force fighters and the Psychlo ships in their high-tech city is something George Lucas might have been associated with.
It's too loud. It's too oppressive. It's too slow. It's too long...far too long. And on it goes. The list of the problems with "Battlefield Earth" is endless. It's difficult to find anything in the film that does work.
Oh yeah. The color scheme is nice.
The real question is how this movie ever got made. Could it have something to do with the fact that L. Ron Hubbard was the founder of Scientology? And that John Travolta is a member of the church.
That might explain why Travolta bought the rights to the novel years ago. But it doesn't give us a clue as to why first-time screenwriter Corey Mandell's atrocious script was used. Or why the high-profile project was entrusted with Roger Christian who had never before directed a major film.
Or why no one looked at this thing before it was released and realized there might be problems.
The one bright spot is that no longer will Kevin Costner's "The Postman" (which I begrudgingly admit as a guilty pleasure) be "the" big budget science fiction failure. "Battlefield Earth" has the honor sewed up.
Often reviewers will recommend that you skip mediocre films and wait for the video. That's not the case here. You can act now and make the decision to not see it on the big screen or on the small one. Don't hesitate. Strike now while the iron is cold.
(Michael Redman has written this column since before this novel was published and he's still not a Scientologist. Send tales of religious science fiction experiences to redman@bluemarble.net.)
[This appeared in the 5/15/2000 "Bloomington Independent", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at redman@bluemarble.net.]
-- mailto:redman@bluemarble.net Film reviews archive: http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman
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