'Battlefield' puts up no fight for fun

Bill Muller The Arizona Republic May 11 2000 15:30:06

This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a stinker.

In Battlefield Earth, the world is almost devoid of human life, much like theaters after word gets out on this dud.

John Travolta stars as Terl, top man among the Psychlos, a plug-ugly race of 9-foot aliens who conquered Earth and turned it into downtown Newark.

The Psychlos have eons of accumulated knowledge, but have yet to invent the toothbrush. They are also fashion victims, forced to walk around with shoelaces hanging from their noses.

Travolta's performance is over the top to the point of absurdity. He spends half the movie laughing maniacally, for no apparent reason.

The sets are dreary and the plot, based on a book by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, is a sad version of The Postman Beyond Thunderdome.

While the Psychlos strip-mine Earth, the surviving humans hide in an old Logan's Run set until they're herded into mining camps and fed leftovers from the Warner Bros. cafeteria.

Their leader is Jonnie (Barry Pepper), who grunts a lot, mainly from embarrassment.

Terl decides to educate Jonnie with the Psychlo "learning machine" and he immediately stops brushing his teeth and masters eighth-grade geometry.

Jonnie uses this vital knowledge to fight the aliens. I love the part where the hill people learn to fly fighter planes in a couple of days.

The dialogue makes even less sense. One minute, the humans sound like Tarzan, the next they're spouting stuff like "we've got company" and "piece of cake." I'm glad Dolly Madison survives the extermination of mankind.

At one point, Travolta's boss asks if he's blown a "head gasket." I don't know much about technology in the year 3000, but I'm guessing the internal combustion engine isn't much of a factor.

On the other hand, since Travolta produced this loser, you have to wonder if he doesn't have a screw loose somewhere.