Customer Reviews

Battlefield Earth [VHS]

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(49)
2 star:		(44)
1 star:		(202)

 

 

When you sit down to see a movie, you know suspension of disbelief is a must. Especially when the film is a science fiction. You know a lot of things in the movie can't really happen, but you can let yourself believe you can for those two hours you're immersed in another world. Unless, of course, the movie is too ludicrous and everything that happens screams disbelief. Battlefield Earth has enough unbelievable situations for three terrible movies. (Warning, minor spoilers ahead).

The premise of the film asks you to accept that a supreme alien race conquered Earth in 9 minutes, and then for 1,000 years have reaped the land for natural resources, namely gold. So a civilization so advanced it can take control of a planet so quickly, hasn't found all the gold on Earth yet? And hasn't even found Fort Knox yet? And they don't have a clue that humans are intelligent enough to operate mining equipment (They laugh at the thought of humans being able to do any work), yet they live in the ruins of Denver, surrounded by obvious signs of an intelligent race which they enslaved. At one point in the film, even, these humans, who have been forced to live in caves or cages, find an army base filled with still working planes and weapons, and learn how to operate everything as good as any experienced pilot or soldier, in only a few days. I could go on; these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Besides the ridiculous leaps of belief the movie asks you to make, there is more to despise here. For example, the pacing is atrocious. In the first 5 minutes of the movie, you meet Jonnie (Barry Pepper) as he returns to his home tribe, says a few words to the woman we're told he's romantically involved with, gets in a fight with the head of the tribe about how they should venture out of their caves, and leaves. The film doesn't show us how they live, explore their culture, examine the relationship Jonnie has neither with the head of the tribe nor with his girlfriend, or even give Jonnie any in depth characterization. Instead, the whole movie moves so fast, we don't know these characters any better then the extras without any speaking lines.

However, there are a few things to admire in this film. Primarily, there are some beautiful scenery shots of mountains, fields, and cities overgrown and taken back by the wilds. There are even a few good ideas peppered throughout the film. Just don't blink, you might miss them.

If you're not at all fussy about intelligent (or even somewhat believable) science fiction, or character development, or even acting (a can of worms I didn't open, John Travolta is terrible as the bad alien Terl), then Battlefield Earth might be worth a quick glance. Otherwise stay away. Stay far, far away.

For starters, every single terrible thing you have heard about this film is 100% true! And while that may be bad for Scientology cult disciples and any other half wit who invested money in the films production, it's brilliant for lovers of so bad they're good flicks.

The plot/plot holes: It's 1000 years into the future and earth is over run by an invading 9-foot tall alien race called 'Psychlos' (umm? 'psychos' and don't expect the difference in height to be as well filmed as in the LOTR trilogy, psychlos are created by having 'actors' stumble around in shoulder pads on obvious platform shoes), man-animalkind is made up of slaves and other living like cavemen in tattered clothes (not bad wear considering their clothing should be 1000 years old plotwise), man-animal Barry Pepper ventures out to be captured and enslaved. Cut to scenes of ridiculous alien banter about 'leverage' and of them double crossing each other (how did such an unorganized race take over the world in 9 minutes?!), scheming psychlo Travolta wants to secretly mine gold (aliens value gold too?) in a zone aliens can't go (alien air reacts badly to radiation?) so he expands Pepper's mind by a laser light show and teaches him to fly?! (it's not enough that they leave the slaves working unsupervised and not under guard around control panels but they have to teach one to read psychlo and fill his head with useful info). Born again scientologist Pepper (after his education he starts spouting Hubbard's mantras like "maths in the universal language") doesn't really mine but merely picks up gold from fort Knox (after 1000 years of alien occupation they still haven't found the gold at Fort Knox?) of course psychlo Travolta not only believes that half a dozen man animals mined a few cubic meters of gold in 14 days but they also melted in down to perfect bars in their spare time? Given 7 more days to mine Pepper and fellow man-animals hatch a plan to liberate the planet using guns and planes (which are of course in perfect working order after 1000 years), man-animals learn to fly the jets (in 7 days flat using 1000 year old flight simulators which still have electricity). Of course the alien aircraft which took over the world in 9 minutes are no match for cavemen in jump-jets (but then again these cgi jump-jets are capable of hovering in hollow building and making hairpin turns!?). They then destroy planet psychlo by beaming up a nuclear bomb. Many scientology activists will plead with you to believe that the book isn't as bad as the movie, but my little bro read it and yes it contains all of the basic plot holes and stupidity of the film and them some.

The 'director' of this film (about now he's probably flipping burgers or cleaning toilets) tried to make the film stylish with countless jump cuts and other slick editing but that just deepens the cheesyness. Its pure hilarity too when they try to steal from other flicks: planet psychlo looks like the opening of 'Blade Runner' and also the running through glass scene from BR is repeated here too (Barry Bob Pepper however emerges from this feat without any lacerations!?), a speech reminiscent of 'BraveHeart' about "freedom" is given at one point by Pepper too (made even funnier by the fact that a man-animal in blue facepaint is in the background). And the idiotic screen wipes which are used! Obviously an attempt to emulate the good 'StarWars' movies (the original ones) they use doubledoor opening screens wipes in EVERY single scene transition! When the last scene cuts to the credits and they use a double door closing screen wipe, I was laughing so hard it hurt!

The fact that this is a big budget film means that you get to see a-list actors making fools of themselves on screen. Real life scientology cult member John Travolta, who you may remember from the period-costume drama 'Saturday Night Fever', puts in the single greatest comedy performance in film history! He reads ever single inept line of dialogue like it was pure Shakespeare in a dead serious manner that comes across as pure camp genius. Genuinely good actor Pepper is shamed too but not so much by his performance but by a script that had him making ape noises in a standoff! If only they had of cast true scientology fanatic and non-actor Tom Cruise in Pepper's role and spared Barry the embarrassment, I'm sure the film would have got even worse (if thats possible?).

While I only gave this film 1 star for pure comedy viewing this film definitely earns 5 stars! During the entire 2 hour running time you will be in a state of constant laughter, more so than can be generated by any comedy movie put out in the last 10 years. In fact there is something almost surreal about viewing 'Battlefield Earth' in that unlike any other so bad its good movies this one was made on an enormous Hollywood budget. While all big budget flicks made in Hollywood are bad by default, none come close to the virtuoso ludicrous insanity that is 'Battlefield Earth'!

While it is good for a hearty laugh and satisfying to see what should be a triumph for scientologists go down in history as one of the most absurd film blunders of all time (LOL not mention the substantial fanatical losses inflicted on all parties involved), I can't help feel bad that the money that went into production of this trainwreck of a film could have gone a long way in fighting cancer or world hunger or any other worthy cause.

Finally, a "Plan 9 from outer space" for our own generation. One simply cannot derive greater campy fun from this film, which has spawned a thousand drinking games! Here are some of my favorites:

***** LEVERAGED DOUBLE-WORD DRINKY-DRINK *****
Take a swig whenever someone says one of those silly hyphenated nouns (e.g. man-animal, crap-lousy), Double-swig whenever you hear the word "Leverage"

***** LOGIC-LAPSE QUAFF-FEST *****
Take a drink whenever confronted with a point in the plot that makes no sense whatsoever - e.g.

- that this group of savage men can learn to fly fighter jets in a day or two; well, OK, I can suspend disbelief for that, but...

- that the aforementioned jets can operate after 1000+ years of sitting idle

- the part where Johnny Goodboy (LOL) is running around without air for, say, 15 minutes

- that the Psychlos call themselves "Psychlos" but call these humans from Earth "man-animals"

- when the "man-animals" are sent to go mine gold, none of these super-smart Psychlos notice that they've apparently mined perfectly smelted gold bars

- when Johnny goes into the library, he peruses 1000+ year old books with fully intact covers and pages; they simply just need a bit of dusting

- that these super-intelligent and strong Psychlos, who conquered Earth in 9 (Yes, 9!) minutes, can barely walk in their silly "Kiss" hand-me down boots and can hardly grasp anything with their big floppy rubber gloves

- while observing the stranded man-animals catching rats to eat, the Psychlos assume rats must be their favorite food, even though there were no other edibles to catch

***** SILLY-QUOTE CHUG-A-LUG *****

Take a sip whenever confronted with nuggets of wisdom such as these:

"I am going to make you as happy as a baby Psychlo on a straight diet of kerbango."

"It will go straight to the home office!"


*For the hardcore kerbango-fan, while drinking, tilt your body at a 30-degree angle for no apparent reason, just like the cinematographer did with the camera!

Let us, gentle reader, ignore this films failure as a sci-fi / religious movie and let us celebrate its triumph as the greatest comedy of all time.

Imagine, for a moment that Jerry Falwel decides to make a film based the book of Job. Jerry casts himself as Job (in KISS make-up) then casts Adam West as the voice of God and the Olsen Twins as Satan. Add a soundtrack by The Bloodhound Gang featuring Cher and you begin to get a small idea of the unintentional hilarity that is Battlefield Earth.

I had a few friends over to watch this and we had a blast (the alcohol helped...alot). Our favorite part was when former Sweat Hog John Travolta as the platform-boot wearing Terl hands over a machine gun to the hero (and I'm using that word in its broadest possible sense) Johnnie. Johnnie hands the gun BACK to Terl and then spends the rest of the movie trying to get his hands on MORE guns. "Whattcha gonna do with those", we screamed at the TV "hand 'em over?"

And don't even get me started on the "Human-animals like to eat rats" part.

Once in every generation a film this bad comes along - let us be thankful that we're here to enjoy it.

This movie makes the Anna Nicole Smith show seem like high entertainment. There was not one good thing about this pathetic starship crash of a movie, except maybe for when the end credits rolled.
No, check that. The credits were horrid, too.
Now, can you publish this review the way it was written this time?

TEN THINGS TO LIKE ABOUT BATTLEFIELD EARTH

10. Kevin Costner didn't produce, direct, write, or star in this film.

9. Forest Whitaker looks embarassed, and after what he did in Ghost Dog and Species, he certainly has reason to.

8. None of the bombs have a red LED countdown timer, and no one says "The blue wire or the red wire?"

7. No one leaps sideways in slow motion while firing a pistol in each hand and hitting a moving target while simultaneously avoiding a hail of machinegun bullets.

6. It's so seldom you hear a villain laugh a genuine "Bwah ha ha!" laugh.

5. You can save money: With the price of one rental you can see Dune, Bladerunner, Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, One Million Years B.C., Clan of the Cave Bear, and half-a-dozen other films.

4. The plot made a lot more sense than that of Star Trek: Insurrection.

3. Good news! Detroit's learned how to make cars that won't rust out in a thousand years.

2. Once you've conquered the universe you don't have to brush and floss.

and the number one best thing about Battlefield Earth:

1. No Jar Jar Binks.

John Travolta has done some bad movies in his career (Michael, Perfect, Phenomenon, Mad City, Two of a Kind). It's too bad because Travolta's a good actor, and has had his share of good movies too (Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction, Grease, Face/Off). But Battlefield Earth is as awful as movies come.
He plays Terl, an alien from the planet Psychlo. He looks like hell. They have given him ugly claw-like hands, billowy eyebrows, and a massive bush of dreadlock hair. The make up designer has copied the aliens from Star Trek and Star Wars so he looks like a cross between a Klingon and a Cantina alien.
This has also got to be the worst performance of Travolta's career. He tries to make Terl a diabolic, yet sarcastic villain and it just doesn't work. Given, he's working with a horrible script, and doesn't have much support from other cast members, but I expected more of a Darth Vader-like bad guy. Terl is not menacing at all, and quickly turns into a joke rather than a true villain. His appearance on screen is an annoyance as he hams it up, sniffing and cackling somewhat like Jack Nicholson's Joker.
Ludicrous is the only word to explain the rest of the film. The script is based on a 1982 novel by the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. Travolta is a known follower of Scientology, and maybe that explains why he did the film. It is badly photographed, with set design that is drab and chintzy, looking a lot like Blade Runner (though not nearly as good). It's the most dismal, depressing art direction and cinematography I've ever seen.
It takes place in the year 3000, when mankind is near extinction and many Psychlos have colonized Earth. Terl is Earth's chief of security, patrolling our destroyed cities with his troops and watching over the few humans (man animals!) that are left. Barry Pepper plays Jonnie, who tries to form an uprising and save Earth from Terl and his men. Pepper, who was excellent in Saving Private Ryan and The Green Mile, has very little opportunity to make the role of Jonnie a good one. He does his best, but the character is too dense and shallow.
Dark, uninspiring, and just plain rotten, Battlefield Earth left me feeling sorry for Travolta and Pepper who have more potential. A note to John Travolta: Fire your agent and get more films like Pulp Fiction and Get Shorty. If you make the right choices maybe we'll see you with the gold on Oscar night someday. Let's just hope it's not the year 3000. Rated PG-13 for violence and light profanity. (No stars) (F)

**AFTER NOTE: Battlefield Earth took home seven Razzie Awards (an awards show that gives prizes to the WORST cinema of the year) including: Worst Actor (Travolta); Worst Supporting Actor (Pepper); Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Picture.

I watched this movie about two months ago, and the mental scar tissue is only beginning to form. Hands-down, no if's and's or but's, the worst movie that will ever be made.

Imagine all the thrills and plot twists of a 25-minute GI Joe cartoon painfully stretched over two hours and robbed of any redeeming character. There are simply not plot holes--this whole movie is a yawning chasm ..., with only small islands of "plot" floating aimlessly amidst the horror.

I get the impression that the disjointed end battle is trying to emulate "Star Wars" by having a lot of different things happening at once. But when you get right down to it, that's all this movie is: A lot of things, happening. You'd think that being based on a book, it'd have a story... you'd be wrong. No cohesive plotline, no character development, period. Travolta looks like he bought leftover costumes from a KISS tour in the early 80's and shot a series of random science-fiction-esque scenes, substituting excessive vertical wipes for any real transitions and then trying to pawn off this steaming pile of dung as a movie.

I would like to round out my review with some synonyms for "bad," which neatly double as one-word reviews for this movie: harmful, scathful, baneful, baleful; injurious, deleterious, detrimental, noxious, pernicious, mischievous, vile, base, villanous; mean (paltry); injured, deteriorated; unsatisfactory, exceptionable indifferent; below par (imperfect); illcontrived, ill-conditioned; wretched, sad, grievous, deplorable, lamentable; pitiful, pitiable, woeful (painful).

I have to say I'm a real fan of most science fiction movies-but this particular film brings this genre down to a new low. I mean there have been plenty of bad sci-fi movies in the past-wooden sets,awful acting,preposterous plots,etc.But I would have thought that a sci-fi movie with generally good actors like John Travolta and Forrest Whitaker would have had to have some merits-well I'm afraid this one doesn't have any. In fact I can't really understand how it can even earn 1 star!

Okay the basic plot and you've all seen this a million times before is-Earth the year 3,000.Man seems to be living in caves,wearing animal skins and has basically been sent back to the stone ages.Why?-Well because we just got whooped by the forces of a far superior planet-the stupidly named Psygor planet. They hate earth-especially all the 'green and blue' landscapes and those here would like nothing better then to go back to their purple planet. But they need to take as much of the earths resources as possible.Well actually it's only one resource really-gold.Amazingly in a planet on the far side of the galaxy some aliens would run over their own mothers just to get more gold. They also need men-or should I say "Man Animals!!" to work as slaves and gather the gold-you know so they can send it back to their relatives back home on planet purple. Men are looked upon as being pretty stupid-in fact they like to call us "Rat Brains"-even though they are the ones who look really dumb as they try to totter around on these enormous stilts inside their trouser leg so as to give the impression that these aliens are in fact about 10 feet tall. They are similar to humans in many ways-they enjoy getting drunk on their own particular brand of yellow liquid.The local bar tender is a world of information and most importantly in the galaxy of business you can't trust anyone. In fact Travolta and Whitaker spend the entire film laughing in a sort of dumb maniacal way or else they're threatening to kill each other. All the while they are underestimating man's powers-especially the desire for freedom to rid us of these terrible aliens. Barry Pepper plays Johnnie(it's good to see the old names will be popular in 1,000 years) and this revolt is based upon his powers of being able to gather the men from not killing each other over the last bits of meat in the stew to form a united front. In the space of the film they go from being a group who can only grunt at each other to people who can express quite brilliantly their desire for freedom. Even better still Johnnie given 20 minutes spare time in a derilict library in Denver can now formulate his plans. So he knows how to do it-but how will he train the men. Well Travolta gives him 7 days to mine as much gold as is possible-but in that time Johnnie discovers an old U.S. army base-what luck. Even better luck is that there are lots of planes there too-and would you believe all the planes still carry fuel that is still usable after 1,000 years.So the humans go from being as dumb as the producers of this movie to be excellent pilots,have a very solid grasp of nuclear physics and also become explosive experts-all in 7 DAYS!!!!So then we go on to the battle from which this awful movie gets it's name.

The thing is I would have loved to have seen the makers,actors,writers etc, view the premier of this movie-I mean how embaressed must they have been when they left the cinema??

Wow! What on God's Green Earth is going on here? Attempting to describe how awful this movie is is to extend it credit it certainly does not deserve. What does it say when half of the 5-star reviews are from the "It's so bad it's good" crowd? The eloquent derision this thing has elicited gives me hope for the country. What can I hope to add, beyond expressing my feeling of inner shame at having watched this all the way through?

Battlefield Earth is so bad that making fun leaves one feeling unfulfilled; it's like hitting a school bus with a train. I'm pretty sure PATCH ADAMS is a more awful movie, but I'm not sure. However, it IS worse than THE AVENGERS. There's almost something sweet about the fact that in the cynical age of Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, and Jerry Bruckheimer, that a genuine abomination like this can be panned off as an achievment. Plus, I heard they did a bunch of reediting before they released it on video! This movie has the potential to become a cult classis on the scale of ROCKY HORROR. It's not camp, though, it's just flat-out awfulness in its full glory. It is so boring that even the grotesquely funny parts are underwhelming. Many spew the usual "the book is so much better," but if the aliens are called -in all seriousness- "Psychlos," you can count me out of reading that one.

Scientology apologists claim this movie has nothing to do with Scientology, but so what? The cult will never recover from this hammed attempt to go mainstream. The apologies for this film are as abusive of common sense as is the movie itself. It's beyond bad...deal with it. The "They hate it because it's science fiction" ilk are also way off base. BATTLEFIELD EARTH is purely bad science-fiction. Any decent person who likes sci-fi ought to detest this movie. As one reviewer put it, "I thought John Travolta liked Hubbard;" is that not the ultimate testament to what this movie is?

Good Lord! How are we supposed to be concerned with the fates of characters who are so absurdly stupid?!? The dumbest strategies are passed off as Machiavellan brilliance; it is inconceivable that this alien race of morons could have managed putting blocks on top of eachother, let alone pulled off interstellar travel. Why would you make humans, who are obviously looking for a fight, more powerful by teaching them what's going on?

I hate to do it...it's like mocking a puppy for wanting a treat...but WHAT is the deal with John Travolta's "scary guy" routine? "Look at me, I'm a bad-guy, you man-animal you. Bwah-hah-hah-hah!" Half the movie is taken up with establishing that the bad guy is not a nice guy. Duh. Most of the rest of it seems to be about tall guys staggering around in slow motion, firing the stupidest guns you've ever seen. The blatant technical rip offs of STAR WARS, PREDATOR, BLADERUNNER, THE MATRIX, et al, left me speechless. Put simply, though, you only have to look at Darth Vader to be impressed; John Travolta acts a whole movie and can't establish the slightest 'gravitas.'

You could drive a battleship through the holes in this plot. Suspending belief would require a frontal labotomy performed with a chainsaw. The plot has all the creativity of a Hannah Barbarra cartoon.

First we have humans with their all their different method acting arguing about the intricacies of their cave paintings, then we have them debating the intricacies of 1000-year old nuclear devices. Second, the humans are illiterate -albeit grammatically correct illterates- yet when Barry is taught to speak "Psychlo" he all of a sudden can read (in English!) the Declaration of Independence (wipe the teardrops, folks)! Thus, he is able to discover Fort Knox, yet John Travolta doesn't know about it.They just wander in to Fort Knox, which looks well-kept, having been abandoned for 1000-yrs. Then he's discussing Euclid with everyone, after having learned from a Psychlo machine that knows nothing of human history.

All of a sudden they stumble on a military base, but they don't tell us how. A fleet of Harriers are in perfect working order, and in a week a bunch of Neanderthals that hunt with sticks and rocks are ready to "rock-and-roll, baby." Humans are waging a rebellion, and they are all wandering around under the dome when a crucial part of their plan involves knocking the dome down. Duh. With the banality of cheeze (with apologies to Hannah Arendt), this movie is an oozing sore that leaves the viewer underwhelmed and downright uncomfortable.

I felt sorry for Barry Pepper, the guy was acting his heart out, when the sad fact is, the idiocy in which he is mired makes a fool out of him. The peripheral characters are all terribly acted, the only point of the love interest is for her to blunder into capture, Barry's pals are all stupid, and the Psychlos....