The Cincinnati Enquirer - May 12, 2000 `Battlefield' blows up in Travolta's face

BY MARSHALL FINE Gannett News Service

Memory fails to summon the name of a movie as ludicrous and unintentionally funny as Battlefield Earth, John Travolta's act of career hubris in service to the late Scientology crackpot, L. Ron Hubbard.

hristian, (who should be ducking for cover about now) is a big-budget sci-fi bomb of surpassing mega-tonnage. With its post-apocalyptic look and howlingly bad dialogue you expect that, any minute, Kevin Costner will make his entrance.

Adapted from Mr. Hubbard?s unreadable sludge pile of a novel, the film is set on Earth in the year 3000, where the Y3K problem obviously has gotten way out of hand. Our first encounters with the surviving humans make it clear that, in the future, there is no shampoo.

[snip to last paragraph]

It's hard to imagine anyone of any age being entertained by Battlefield Earth. John Travolta may have earned a place in Scientology heaven - but he did it by digging a grave for himself.