Battlefield Earth

Grade: C-

Our Review:

So, it's the year 3000 and man is an endangered species. Some 10-foot- tall, reptilian humanoids (think wannabe Klingons) have laid waste to Earth and, à la Planet of the Apes, enslaved man as their beast of burden. Pepper, the piercing sharpshooter from Saving Private Ryan, plays a tenacious "man-animal" with the know-how to use technology. He launches an uprising and sets off a load of Independence Day-style fireworks. Based on sci-fi writer turned Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's novel of the same name, this Battlefield's girth is all flab, a bombastic concoction of miscued camp and underachieving action. Travolta is only intermittently engaging as the chief imperial alien, and the FX, while passable, can't improve the flavor of this cinematic vat of cheese.