RATING: 1/2 star out of 4 stars

'Battlefield' dearth

By Lawrence Toppman The Charlotte Observer Published: May 12, 2000

Greater devotion hath no man than to make a fool of himself on behalf of his faith.

John Travolta, the Scientologist with the most public profile in Hollywood, believes the writings of L. Ron Hubbard contain the philosophic keys to wisdom, contentment and self-mastery. He pushed hard to get "Battlefield Earth," Hubbard's novel about aliens dominating the nearly extinct race of humans, onto the screen with an A-picture budget.

And there he stands at the center of it: strutting around in platform boots, speaking in a pseudo-British accent when he's not cackling maniacally, sporting Confucius-style chin hair and knotty dreadlocks that would intimidate a Jamaican drug dealer, and breathing through an apparatus that looks like two 12-inch strings of leathery brown snot.

If this movie were Camp City, he'd be its mayor. But it's not funny enough, intentionally or otherwise, to pass for camp. It's bombastic, chaotic, plodding, visually dreary and patchily written by first-timer Corey Mandell and JD Shapiro, who's too unimportant to rate mention in the press kit. (I'd guess he's a pseudonym for Travolta, who was also one of three producers for the project.)

Now, I have nothing against Scientology, so I don't want its supporters to drop live snakes into my mailbox. I once tried to read "Dianetics," Hubbard's statement of the Scientology credo, but found it too thick in many senses of the word. (Its fans would probably say I was the thick one.)

I don't think it's an insidious religion meant to undermine Christianity, and I don't believe - as one e-mailing group has contended - that the picture is full of subliminal messages meant to seep into my consciousness. The only message I received was an overt one: Warn readers not to give Travolta any of their disposable income.

In fact, the plot is so common it might've been cobbled together from any number of war, science fiction or even gladiator movies.

It's set in 3000 A.D., when the invading Psychlos have ruled our planet for a millennium. They've reduced humankind to an endangered species, enslaving these "man-animals." (If Psychlos are so smart, why have they learned nothing about human psychology or language in 1,000 years?)

Terl (Travolta), Psychlo chief of security on Earth, runs an outpost in Denver. He discovers a gold mine whose gas emissions would poison Psychlos. Since he wants to amass enough gold to bribe his bosses into letting him return home, he decides to train a human slave named Johnnie (Barry Pepper) to lead the mining operation.

To do so, Terl makes him smarter with an IQ beam that immediately teaches Johnnie geometry, engineering, the Psychlo language and all the other things he needs to know to lead a rebellion. If you can't guess everything that happens thereafter, you are a very lazy-minded man-animal indeed.

Pepper and Forest Whitaker, who plays Terl's second-in-command, might've done something worth remembering if there'd been decent raw material from which to work. Travolta smirks steadily; when he fixes his mind on a bad performance, no one can dissuade him from it. (He's not so selfless after all on behalf of his Scientological art: He's the only Psychlo who doesn't wear heavy, Klingon-style latex makeup. Mustn't obscure too much of J.T.)

The coup de gracelessness comes in Roger Christian's direction. The final battle is the most incoherent I've seen in months; it makes the conflicts in "Gladiator" look as carefully mapped out as the invasion of Normandy.

Christian shoots every scene on the bias, with characters standing at odd angles to us or each other: When he cut back and forth in dialogues, I thought I was riding a see-saw. If, as Travolta threatens, a sequel is in the offing, I'll gladly lend him a few hundred bucks for a good, steady camera tripod.